ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews/29 August) -- North Cotabato Vice Governor Emmanuel Pinol said government should not deceive or engage in double-talk but tell the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) “what it can and cannot give” as he also urged the creation of a multisectoral Mindanao Stakeholders' Commission (MSC) that will, using the controversial government-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) as the “base document,” review which provisions are “acceptable and doable and make a recommendation to the President.” These were two of several recommendations made by Pinol before the Senate Defense Committee hearing Friday at the Garden Orchid Hotel here, on Senate Resolution 1281 seeking suspension of the resumption of the peace talks until the four issues cited by Senate Defense Committee chair Rodolfo Biazon, are addressed.
The issues are control of the MILF over their men; changing Malaysia as facilitator; the May 6, 2002 Joint Communique which allows for coordination between the MILF and the military and police in so-called “MILF areas” and how civil society can influence the direction of the talks.
Pinol made two short-term recommendations, the first of which is the creation and convening of a Mindanao Stakeholders’ Commission that will be “composed of other stakeholders in Mindanao who were not consulted in the drafting of the MILF-GRP MOA-AD.”
In his Powerpoint presentation, Pinol said the MSC “should include the Indigenous People, Muslims who are not members of the MILF, specifically the MNLF, political leaders both Muslim and Christian, religious leaders, farmer leaders, business leaders, woman leaders and youth leaders. Using the GRP-MILF MOA -AD as the base document, they will review which provisions are acceptable and doable and make a recommendation to the President.”
In his oral presentation, however, Pinol added “specifically the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front)” after “Muslims who are not members of the MILF.”
He also added “without necessarily including it in the formal documents” after “Using the GRP-MILF MOA-AD as the base document.” MindaNews sought Pinol to explain what he meant by his inserted phrase, but he could not be reached.
Reactions
Fr. Eliseo Mercado, Jr., convenor of Kusog Mindanaw and executive director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance and who was also present during the public hearing, told MindaNews, “Executive Order 3 creates an advisory peace council to advise the panel… I believe that this will suffice when properly created.”
Grace Rebollos, president of the Western Mindanao State University and a member of the Peace Advocates Zamboanga, said, “there’s a need to be clear about its role, composition, extent of acess to information and decisions, assurance of its insulation from vested interests local and foreign, protocols for engagement, maybe not just advisory. To include oversight.”
Pinol last year led officials in the filing of a petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) before the Supreme Court to stop the government peace panel from formally signing the MOA-AD that was initialed July 27, 2008.
The Supreme Court issued the TRO afternoon of August 4, eve of what was supposed to be the formal signing in Putrajaya, Malaysia last year.
The talks collapsed thereafter and the two panels managed to meet again only on July 28 and 29 this year. They issued a Joint Statement on July 29 to announce the year-long impasse had been broken and that they were preparing for the talks.
Pinol immediately warned he would have the government peace panel cited for contempt for allegedly “ignoring the Supreme Court decision declaring the MOA-AD unconstitutional.”
In a press statement dated July 31 but e-mailed August 1, Pinol said “the brazen act of the GRP Panel to include the MOA-AD in the Joint Statement will not go unquestioned.”
But coming back to Davao from meeting with a government peace panel member in Cebu on August 6, Pinol told MindaNews he had “softened” his stance on his plan to cite the government peace panel in contempt.
Twenty-two days later, in Zamboanga City, Pinol recommended the creation of the multisectoral MSC, a proposal he made last year at the height of the controversy over the MOA-AD but was not given enough attention.
Functions
A report dated August 6, 2008 of the NorthCot News Team posted on the website of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of North Cotabato, said Pinol proposed the creation of the MSC aftger the Supreme Court issued the TRO. The main function of the commission, he said, “will be to study the MOA and recommend revisions to provisions which are deemed unfair and disadvantageous to people in the areas being considered for inclusion in a so-called Bangsamoro homeland under a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.”
To recall, the BJE was supposed to have as its core the five-province, two-city Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and six towns of Lanao del Norte that voted for inclusion in the ARMM and 735 villages “where a plebiscite will be conducted within 12 months after the signing of the MOA-AD.”
An additional list of 1,459 areas were to be treated as “special intervention areas” and still be “subject to further negotiations.” A plebiscite will be held in these areas “not earlier than 25 years from the signing of the Comprehensive Compact” if they want or do not want to be in the BJE.
Pinol said the August 12 encounter in Basilan where over 20 members of the Armed Forces were killed, drew varied reactions, including calls for the suspension of the talks with the MILF.
“The people of North Cotabato feel bad, too. One of the boys who was killed came from my hometown, M’lang. But setting our anger and emotions aside, it is our belief that the peace talks should go on,” he said.
Pinol, however, stressed that government “must be clear and straightforward with the MILF on what it can and cannot give.”
“For years now, the Philippine government has been committing deceit in talking to the MILF. They have engaged in double-speak and utilized ambiguous statements,” he said, adding that the MILF is also “not without fault. They exploit gestures of conciliation extended by government such as the SOMO and the ceasefire, to regroup, rearm and reposition.”
“Go Local”
Pinol recommended that peace negotiations “go local.”
“The panel must get out of the box of international standards and methodologies for conflict resolution and look at the Mindanao Conflict as a problem that cannot and should not be compared to the Northern Ireland or Darfur conflicts,” he said.
Pinol also said there should be “no generic solution for the Mindanao Conflict given the fact that problems have different complexions depending on the political, social and economic conditions of a specific area.”
He said the problem in Maguindanao is different from the problem in North Cotabato, alleging that the conflict in Maguindanao has “degenerated into a bloody clan war between a big and powerful political family backed by government forces and members of the MILF under Umbra Kato.”
Pinol said the MILF is “already a spent force” and yields influence only in the “Central Mindanao area.”
“The death of Hashim Salamat changed the complexion of the MILF from a religion-inspired rebel group with links to the Jemaah Islamiya and the Al Qaeda to an organization groping for a new identity,” he said.
Other recommendations
Pinol also recommended:
- a “complete overhaul of the GRP panel support staff,” claiming that the support staff now “are the same people behind the MOA-AD who think that the conflict should be solved in the context of the war of nations;”
- “the participation in the peace process of foreign facilitators whose motives are under question should be reviewed,” citing Malaysia, which he said has conflict of interest with the Philippines over Sabah and which now knows all the military encampments in Mindanao;
- Government “should take a different approach in finding a solution to the Mindanao problem. Negotiate, but don’t put all our eggs in one basket…(address) the basic problems of poverty, education and injustice;
- “Finding a solution to the conflict and forging peace in Mindanao should not be tied to the term of office of whoever holds power in Malacanang as this only leads to palliative and superficial answers to deep-seated problems which will only surface again and lead to another round of conflict in the future;
- “Learn from the lessons of the GRP-MNLF Agreement. Appeasement will not guarantee true and lasting peace. It may bring about a temporary cessation of hostilities but for as long as the root causes of the problem which include poverty, lack of education and deprivation are present, the problem will continue. The MNLF-GRP agreement focused so much on political reforms rather than socio-economic programs. Leadership training for the region’s political leaders was largely ignored giving way to a culture of political corruption where elected officials assume that their LGU’s IRA are the rewards of a victory in an election.”
On the medium-term, Pinol recommended “disarmament not only of the MILF but all groups to include private armies of political warlords” and on the long-term, through an act of Congress, a “Mindanao Land Conflict Settlement Commission” under the Office of the President that would “address the grievances of the Mindanao Muslims and also of Christian settlers on alleged forcible dispossession of their land during the conflict of the 1970s.”
“While the government is determined to work for a peaceful solution for the conflict in the southern Philippines, it must never allow the dismemberment of the Republic. It must not allow itself to be threatened by a rebel group into agreeing to its demands, or else the Peace Agreement that would be forged would be a product of coercion and terrorism,” he said.
Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat agreed with Pinol’s recommendation to have the talks localized and to get another country-facilitator, as he also recommended that should a plebiscite be done on the peace issue that was being discussed, even the ARMM member-provinces should be asked if they want to be in or out of the autonomous region.
Sulu Governor Sakur Tan sent a message that there is no MILF in his province. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
Source: http://www.mindanews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6902&Itemid=190
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