Zamboanga City To Resist Inclusion Of 8 Villages To Muslim Ancestral Domain

Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat, left, gestures during a news conference while Abdurahman Nuno, a member of the City Council, listen. (City Hall Photo)

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / August 6, 2008) – The Philippines Supreme Court's order to stop the signing of a memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is only the beginning of a long and tedious legal fight to retain the integrity and sovereignty of Zamboanga City, Mayor Celso Lobregat said.

Lobregat said there is much to be done to ensure that Zamboanga will remain intact. “This is only the beginning. In fact, we need more prayers. People from different faiths should be more prayerful than ever,” Lobregat said in a statement posted at the Zamboanga City website.

Lobregat said that the High Court's decision was unprecedented. “Who would have thought the Supreme Court would issue the TRO with such haste and speed?”

“We need divine intervention," Lobregat said, adding, he expects other areas covered by the ancestral domain to also protest the inclusion of their communities to the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, which would make up a separate Islamic homeland in Mindanao.

He said North Cotabato and Sibugay provinces, including the cities of Zamboanga, Iligan and Isabela have strongly opposed the inclusion of their villages to the ancestral domain.

Lobregat said a team of lawyers from the different local governments will be meeting soon in Zamboanga City to map out the next move, before August 15 when the oral arguments on the main petition begin in the Supreme Court.

The High Tribunal ordered asked the government to provide it a copy of the memorandum of agreement on the ancestral domain not later than August 8.

“The High Court issued the TRO which restrains the respondents (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) from signing the MOA-AD (with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front),” Lobregat said.

Lobregat said the government failed to consult with the locals about the ancestral domain agreement. He said residents reject the inclusion of Zamboanga City villages to the ancestral domain.

He said eight villages, including two from downtown areas, are included in the proposed Muslim homeland. But Presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon said only Sacol, a predominantly Muslim island of six villages, is included in the deal and that a referendum would follow a year later where the islanders would want to be part of a separate Muslim homeland. (Mindanao Examiner)