ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 18, 2008) – Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels on Friday urged Manila to postpone next month’s regional elections in Mindanao until both sides sign a peace agreement.
Peace negotiators reached an agreement on the issue of ancestral domain and both sides are discussing talks aimed at putting an end to more than four decades of hostilities in the southern region.
Ancestral domain is the single most important issue in the peace negotiations before the rebel group can reach a political settlement with the Philippine government.
The ancestral domain covers the whole of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other areas in Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani provinces where there are large communities of Muslims and indigenous tribes. And even Palawan Island in central Philippines.
Manila has offered to hold a plebiscite in at least 712 villages covered by the Muslim ancestral domain and a shift to Federal system of government before the term of President Gloria Arroyo ends in 2010.
Ghazali Jaafar, deputy MILF chieftain, said the August 11 polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao would affect the peace talks because those who would be elected have to finish their three-year term.
“Three years is a long time. Many can happen within three years. There is a need to postpone the elections in the ARMM. The MILF is very serious in asking the Arroyo administration to postpone the forthcoming ARMM elections.”
“The ARMM elections are an obstacle to the successful implementation of the peace process if there is an agreement signed (by both sides because) we have to wait for the elected officials to finish their terms,” Jaafar said.
President Gloria Arroyo's peace adviser Secretary Hermogenes Esperon said both panels will meet on July 24 to formally sign the deal on ancestral domain.
“Six months after signing the agreement on ancestral domain, we will already hold plebiscites in the villages that will be included in their Bangsamoro Juridical Entity maybe in January or February next year even as the formal negotiations for the last phase of the peace talks are still ongoing,” Esperon said.
But militant groups and opposition politicians fear that President Arroyo or her allies in the House of Representatives might use the peace talks with the MILF as an excuse to amend the Constitution to change the system of government from presidential to parliamentary or federalism to allow the MILF to have a separate state and eventually prolong her into power beyond 2010.
Under the presidential form of government, Arroyo, who deposed President Joseph Estrada in a people power revolution in 2001, is allowed only one six-year term. In the charter change proposal suggested by her political allies who dominate Congress, she can be elected as prime minister should Congress dissolve the Senate and change the system of government to parliamentary.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel also proposed a Federal system of government.
Pimentel said the establishment of a federal system, as embodied under Joint Resolution 10 which he has introduced, will not only overhaul the political structure of government but also bring about a dramatic change in the system of apportioning the wealth of the nation between the central government and the local government units.
“Since the central government will be left with less power, it will need fewer funds. And therefore, its share of the national wealth or resource shall be reduced correspondingly.As proposed in Resolution 10, the sharing of revenues will be 80 percent for the Federal states and 20 percent for the Central government."
Pimentel said federalization of the country would enhance national cohesion and unity because the proposed 11 component states will enjoy full autonomy in administering their affairs and pursuing their economic development through the wise use of resources available in their respective territories and provided by the central government.
Pimentel proposed four Federal states in Luzon: the federal state of Northern Luzon; Central Luzon; Southern Tagalog; and Bicol. And three in the Visayas: the federal state of Eastern Visayas; Central Visayas; and Western Visayas.And three more Federal states in Mindanao: the federal state of Northern Mindanao; Southern Mindanao; and the Bangsamoro.
President Arroyo opened peace talks with the MILF in 2001 and vowed to forge a peace deal with the rebels before her term ends on 2010. The MILF is fighting for a separate homeland in Mindanao Island, whose 16 million populations include about four million Muslims.
Manila previously offered the MILF the Muslim autonomous region, which is composed of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi which are among the poorest in the country and torn by strife and clan wars since its creation in 1989. The MILF flatly rejected the offer and insisted on self-determination.
Peace talks were stalled last year after both sides failed to sign any agreement on ancestral domain, which refers to the rebel demand for territory that will constitute a Muslim homeland.The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) said neither the poll body or government peace negotiators can postpone the ARMM elections. It said there is no reason to delay the elections.
“We cannot postpone the ARMM elections. It would be up solely to the Congress to postpone the elections, but it is too late now because there is no more time. We will go through this elections because we mandated by law,” said COMELEC Commissioner Jose Melo, who is in-charge of the ARMM polls.
Melo said the ARMM polls will not be a hindrance to the peace talks. “It will not be in any way a roadblock to any peace talks,” he said.
Many Muslims said they are in favor of a separate Bangsamoro homeland. “We want to have our own homeland, just like in the past. We are neglected here. We don’t have any development projects in our village. We don’t enjoy what Christians (villages) have like health centers, electricity and clean water, roads and schools and many more.”
“We are discriminated and looked down by Christians as if we are beggars. This land is ours, they belong to our ancestors,” said Ahmed, a Muslim villager in Zamboanga City, the former capital of the Moro province.
Zamboanga’s first inhabitants were the indigenous tribes called Subanon and Lutao and later the Islamized ethnic groups of Samal, Badjao, Tausug and Yakan. It is one of the first chartered cities and the sixth largest in the Philippines.
The MILF said some Zamboanga’s predominantly Muslim villages are included in the ancestral domain. (Mindanao Examiner)
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Many or most of the suggested states are artificial and do not reflect cultural or historical realities. Central Luzon, for instance, is an artificial entity to which no one would owe loyalty. The Tagalog and Ilocano portions should be transferred to their respective states, while the Kapampangan portion, 27% of the population, should be constituted into a separate state. According to Dr. Rene Azurin:“But, of the proposed eleven (or so) federal states, no more than a few - like the Cebuano state or the Pampangueno-Tarlaqueno state - would actually be able to stand on their own financially."
(Azurin, Rene. On Decentralizing Government, p. 5. Paper presented at the Dialogues on Federalism. Center for Local and Regional Governance, NCPAG, UP Diliman, Quezon City, 3 August 2007. Originally published in the book Stationary Bandits: Essays in Political Power, also by Dr. Azurin. Platypus Press, 2007).
The Kapampangan Region has a sufficiently large area and population to become a region or federal state. Kapampangan-majority areas - Pampanga province, plus the highly urbanized city of Angeles, the Tarlac towns of Bamban, Capas and Concepcion, and the city of Tarlac - together registered a population of 2,398,144 in 2000 (it would be even larger if historically Kapampangan areas, like adjoining areas of Bataan and Nueva Ecija where Kapampangan is still spoken, are included). This is larger than that of the Cordillera and Caraga regions (1,365,412 and 2,095,367, respectively, in 2000) and nearly as large as that of the ARMM (2,412,159 in 2000). Its area (3,424.68 sq km) is much bigger than that of Metro Manila (636 sq km), a separate region and a proposed autonomous entity in a federal system. Moreover, it is larger in area and population than at least 26 independent countries, including Barbados, Grenada, Liechtenstein, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius and Seychelles, and in population than another 26 including Brunei, Cyprus, Estonia, Fiji, Gabon, Guyana and Swaziland. It is larger in area than both Singapore and the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Hongkong.
Of the eight major language groups, only Kapampangans and Pangasinenses do not have regions of their own, and consequently, only the two have not been given separate states in most proposals for federalization.
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