From the Manila Times (Nov 9): PCFR condemns foreign meddling in Mindanao
THE Philippine Council for Foreign Relations (PCFR) is a
multi-sectoral grouping composed of retired Filipino diplomats and armed forces
flag-officers, business executives, academic and civil society representatives.
The PCFR is dedicated to upholding a constitutional mandate for this country to
pursue an independent foreign policy. It is against this background that the membership of the council is dismayed
by the seemingly inordinate attention that foreign governments have given to
what can be considered as a strictly local affair.
It is unfortunate that what should have been treated as a
purely domestic issue relating to a constitutionally erected autonomous region
has assumed international dimensions with a comprehensive agreement between
this nation and its autonomous region in the south – signed, sealed and
delivered under the patronizing gaze of so-called foreign sponsors to a Mindanao
peace process.
Instead of the whole matter being placed in the hands of the
Department of the Interior and Local Governments, the issue now
internationalized has fallen into the lap of the Department of Foreign Affairs
giving the MILF the status of a belligerent state, which state under
international law has given it an importance far above that of its status of an
autonomous region of this Republic.
Recently the Council took notice of a manifesto recently \to media by some
foreign chiefs-of-mission urging the Aquino government to pass the highly
unconstitutional original mission of the CAB and the BBL as the solution to the
Mindanao peace and order situation. This the
Council deemed as undue interference and a violation of the hallowed principle
of non-interference in purely domestic affairs, especially since this matter is
still being deliberated in Congress and has been elevated to the Supreme Court
making it sub-judicial.
The fact that the spokesman of the group – the British
Ambassador whose country questionably annexed Sabah without regard to the
Philippines in the early sixties and made it a part of the Federation of
Malaysia, which has spawned a lot of hostilities in Mindanao — is perhaps the last
person to be the spokesperson of the group in this controversial issue. His
public criticism of legislators who stayed away from Congress during the BBL
discussions can only be deemed highly inappropriate. Perhaps it is good to
remind the British Ambassador that this nation is not a part of Malaysia or the British
Commonwealth.
Parenthetically, as Ambassador to the Court of St. James in
the UK as well as envoy to the Scandinavian countries, my father in all the
years that he served as Chief of Mission in his postings never dared to comment
on purely domestic matters nor did he dare to criticize or advise members of
parliament. For my part, as Ambassador to Italy, I refrained from commenting
publicly on issues discussed by political parties. This simply was not proper
protocol.
In the case of the United States, its stepping up activities
in the southern Philippines which includes bringing former combatants from
Cotabato and Sulu to Manila to attend sessions designed “to help them sort out
their self-identity” seems to be at odds with the desire of this nation to
develop a multi-cultural society as a road towards peace in an island occupied
by Muslims, Indigenous People
and Christians.
In the same vein, efforts by the US Embassy, however
commendable, to establish legal aid clinics at law schools in Mindanao and
Palawan through a legal assistance program
in Mindanao, allegedly aimed at “instilling” awareness among youth in Mindanao
about legal rights and helping improve access to justice for marginalized Muslim communities in Mindanao
fosters exclusiveness which goes against the goal of this country to integrate
the Muslim community into the mainstream of a nation composed of different socio-cultural
groupings. A US AID internship program that allows university students and
recent graduates who live primarily within the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao to intern in the offices of Philippine lawmakers in Manila allegedly
designed to help Muslim youth in conflict-affected areas gain an understanding
of democratic values and institutions, governance issues and the process of
legislating, seem to be unusual given that Muslim legislators in Congress
already pack their offices with Muslim youths who have been inculcated in
schools with the virtues of democracy – a task that has been promoted
assiduously by our Department of Education in all parts of the country
regardless of the local people’s religious denomination.
Finally, the US grant to students from the University of
Mindanao in a month-long internship with grassroots organizations that champion
human rights, gender equality, and community empowerment and the bringing of
legal professionals and law students from institutions based in Mindanao to the
United States where they met US government officials and nongovernment sectors
involved in civic legal aid and conflict resolution as part of the annual
international visitor leadership program is an affront to University of
Mindanao officials who have to export their graduates to the US to learn about
human rights and community empowerment. We had thought all this time that the
school of higher learning had already these basic courses as part of their
curriculum.
In this connection, we have to remind the US that it’s
“manifest destiny” (an invention of President McKinley) to “civilize” this
nation ended with the grant of Philippine Independence in 1946.
The actuations of our foreign allies in the Mindanao peace process, which as we said
earlier is a purely domestic issue to be best solved among Filipinos regardless
of religious affiliation, has raised a lot of speculations regarding the
rectitude of their intentions and raised suspicions that alien interests have
hidden agendas and are merely using the MILF as proxies.
In the interest of transparency, therefore, we call upon
foreign elements involved or interested in the peace process to place their
cards on the table, so to speak. What are these possible interests?
Is the US
hoping for to be given rights by a Bangsamoro sub-state with its parliamentary
system under an MILF Chief Minister beholden to Malaysia? Is this the reason for
the inordinate attention that the US
has in Mindanao which has seen the frequent visit of American Ambassadors to
this part of the country, one of whom even witnessed the drafting of the
Comprehensive Agreement in Bangsamoro in Kuala
Lumpur?
In the case of Her Majesty’s government, which created the
Malaysian Federation after illegally annexing to it a big chunk of the real
estate of the Sultanate of Sulu in Borneo, is her interest an attempt to
protect her vast economic interests in Sabah by aligning with
her former colony to marginalize the Sultanate and its faithful Tausug
supporters in the Sulu peninsula by giving physical and political control of
the area to Malaysia’s mercenary army led by the MILF?
These are the questions that need to be answered if a
settlement to the peace process in Mindanao can move forward in the next
administration because today the Filipino people cannot swallow a comprehensive
agreement for peace in Mindanao which can only be described as having been
drafted in Malaysia, by Malaysians and for the benefit of Malaysians and their
foreign partners and mercenaries.
For all and sundry, and we address this particularly to the
so-called foreign peaceniks who are allegedly brokering the peace process in
the land of promise, the government of the Philippines represented by the next
administration (because this one is stopped from proceeding with its dangerous
political experimentation in Mindanao having claimed the ARMM to have been a
failed experiment) will surely be able to convert the land of promise from a
war-torn danger zone to a zone of peace and prosperity by simply enhancing the
constitutionally erected autonomous region in Mindanao through the grant of
full fiscal autonomy, allowing it to accelerate its infrastructure and social
overhead projects. This is of course premised on one important conditionality:
the political will, which this administration never had, to disarm and
integrate when possible all the wayward elements in the island starting with
the MILF, MNLF, BIFF, Abu Sayyaf, the private armies, the NPA and others.
Presidents Cory and Ramos were able to promote a semblance
of peace and development in the area through a policy of attraction and
diplomacy while President Estrada degraded if not decimated the MILF. All three
administrations contributed to the establishment of ARMM which is now run by
10,000 bureaucrats sans the support of foreign interlopers. Today it is a work
in progress and in certainly not a failed experiment.
The hope is that the region becomes a land of peace for all
its stakeholders – Muslims, Lumads, Christians etc. All working together
harmoniously as they do in other parts of Asia.
Yes indeed we do not need visitors in this country to tell
us what to do. We are no longer a colony!
[Ambassador Romero is the president of the Philippine
Council on Foreign Relations. He is a founding officer of the Philippine
Ambassadors Foundation Inc.]
http://www.manilatimes.net/pcfr-condemns-foreign-meddling-in-mindanao/228257/
