Honoring our Written Agreements
It behooves upon the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to keep on track the status of the peace process. None of us think the MOA-AD will end the life of the country. But it lets the Bangsamoro people feel a sense of purpose with new “associative ties” to the rest of the Philippines, redefining the relationships between the Filipino people and Bangsamoro people.
I believe that tracking our footprints on the negotiation path can help us tread peacefully using the MOA-AD as a great motivation on the way forward. After 4 years and 8 months of Exploratory Talks, the MILF wants to keep going and see if we can leave behind the imprints of past Moro wars, end the armed conflicts of recent decades and so deal with the Comprehensive Compact.
The Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) is an abstract idea that is hard for ordinary people to connect to. It’s good to build public confidence around this conceptual framework at basic level, with a written instrument, for the peaceful negotiated settlement of age-old “Moro Problem” and armed conflict in Mindanao.
As a revolutionary movement, the MILF takes the controversy over the release of the contents of the MOA-AD a call to redefine patriotism. What defines us as patriots of our historic Bangsamoro homeland is a positive force in the country today.
What we, mujahideens, fight for now find open articulation in the MOA-AD: Our political sentiments and collective actions to pursue the right “to determine our own future political status free from imposition”.
This Memorandum of Agreement has the ingredients of an “elegant formula” fulfilling one of the objects of negotiation to put an idea before the public. It does on paper equations of “trade-offs” instead of “sell-out”.
More importantly, it is a firm statement of patriotism on behalf of all the Bangsamoros who claim it a birthright right to assert their distinct identity. It makes a plausible public expression of what political moderates and peace advocates demand in common as well as human right activists march about in mass.
Let us not forget, too, our comrades-in-arms in the liberation movements who have been aspiring for what they progressively desire to accomplish a long time. Today we find one voice one sentiment in our long struggle for self determination and freedom.
To track the GRP-MILF negotiation path, the aborted signing in the Malaysian capital is confirmation to wary investors and multi-donor countries on the incapability of the GRP of living up to its commitments and honoring its agreements. Certainly no rhetoric of anti-Moro and anti-Muslim sentiments opposed to the MOA-AD can distort the bias of diplomacy towards settling the essence of the Bangsamoro problem with third party facilitation.
For the sake of the primacy of the peace process, I want to caution people in the media to desist from fueling years of vengeful arrogance. Through opinion-editorials and spins in news coverage, your diatribe alienates many others—more than our revolutionary forces.
For the sake of evoking public response, the domestic scrutiny of the MOA-AD before the Supreme Court has gone the way of media intrusion for full disclosure. The trouble is that it can be more injurious to the GRP negotiator’s credibility rather than the MILF side, for it makes consensus and agreement very hard to achieve.
Attempts to stop the signing of the agreed text of the MOA-AD through a petition for temporary restraining order are other forms of suppression of Bangsamoros parallel to domestic political decisions. Of what peaceable benefit is derived from the foreclosure of the negotiability of matters where the MILF does not contest it by arms? This may affect only the reputation for discretion of Government negotiators in subsequent stages for the details of how the Comprehensive Compact, if reached, is to be revealed.
All things considered, the negotiation of the MOA-AD is a done deal in accordance with modern treaty law practice. As such, for the MILF side, there is none to agree to any further as framework agreement except to honor the terms and stipulations in good faith. In as much as the MOA-AD was duly initialed by representatives of the Parties thereto afterward they exchanged copies. The original initialed copy of the agreed text in the English language together with maps annexed thereto as of 27 July 2008 was deposited with the Malaysian Secretariat.
The initialing took place in Kuala Lumpur to jibe with the formal signing ceremony dated 5 August 2008: on the part of the GRP negotiating panel chairman Rodolfo Garcia, and for the MILF negotiating panel chairman Mohagher Iqbal. Likewise, the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon affixed his initial on the agreed text. The Malaysian facilitator Datuk Othman bin Abd Razak properly initialed as witness the copy of agreed text.
On a personal note, we do commend both the MILF and the Government negotiating panels and all those who took part in this great endeavor.
Camp Darapanan
Al Haj Murad Ebrahim
MILF Chairman
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