Philippine Daily Inquirer
Cannon fire brings war’s horrors to Mindanao schools
First of four parts; 09/25/2009
DATU PIANG, MAGUINDANAO — Sometime in mid-June, just days after the new school year opened, classes at Datu Gumbay Piang Central Elementary School broke up as cannons boomed from an Army firebase 25 meters away.
Teacher Noime Pua said that with every volley, “our pupils would go out of the classroom, some would go home to the evacuation center, others were fetched by their parents.”
“Those left behind could no longer concentrate on our lessons,” Pua told a group of peace advocates, humanitarian workers and journalists.
School officials asked the soldiers to move their two 105-mm and one 155-mm howitzers elsewhere but the Army was not inclined to give up its strategic position. One officer instead advised the school to look for a new location.
The incident seemed to illustrate the supremacy of military objectives over any other considerations after fighting broke out with Moro rebels last year following the collapse of the controversial Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).
Today, both sides are trying to revive the stalled negotiations brokered by Malaysia. Hopes are that with the end of the Muslim fasting season of Ramadan, talks could begin anew in the next few weeks.
Sharing the blame
The aborted deal on ancestral domain called for an expanded Bangsamoro homeland in parts of Mindanao and Palawan, to be governed by Muslims or by a so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.
It was the symbol of a generations-old hope among Moros for self-rule, nourishing countless revolts that have bedeviled every government in the fractious archipelago.
Blame for the renewed fighting fell on everyone.
Angry at the aborted signing of the accord, guerrillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked Kolambugan and Kauswagan towns in Lanao del Norte in August last year, reigniting large-scale clashes after five years of relative lull.
The MOA-AD crowned talks on the sensitive issue of ancestral domain. Both government and the MILF regarded it as the biggest gain of the 11-year peace negotiations aimed at ending an insurgency that has claimed some 150,000 lives, by some estimates.
Mea culpa
Tension boiled after local officials warned of a political backlash from communities that would be covered by the Moro homeland. Critics slammed what they called “juicy” concessions to the rebels.
Weeks before the August attacks on civilian areas in Lanao del Norte, smaller skirmishes had erupted in Midsayap town in North Cotabato. The military used bomber planes in the fighting.
By Aug. 18, the battleground had widened to include Maasim town in Sarangani.
“We are man enough to acknowledge that we started the fighting in Lanao del Norte,” MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal told reporters.
Fighting escalates
But while conceding that “we violated the ceasefire, especially in Lanao del Norte,” Iqbal also pointed out that the later clashes were “worse than what was started.”
Iqbal denied accusations that the MILF had bombed major localities, killing civilians. He said the MILF was open to an investigation, preferably by the International Monitoring Team (IMT), and urged the Armed Forces to submit to the same process.
The IMT, formed in 2004 and headed by Malaysia, monitors compliance with the 1997 ceasefire agreement. From 2004 to July 2008, encounters had drastically gone down. The biggest number (16) occurred in 2004.
In mid-2007, both sides also edged close to a full-scale fighting after Moro rebels beheaded 10 Marines in an encounter in Albarka, Basilan. The Joint Coordinating Committee for the Cessation of Hostilities (JCCCH), where both sides are represented, defused the tension.
Self-defense
With the resurgence of fighting in August last year, the military launched a manhunt for three “rogue” MILF commanders blamed for the atrocities in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato.
The search for the three commanders—Ameril Ombra Kato, Abdullah Macapaar, alias “Commander Bravo,” and Aleem Sulaiman Pangalian—took the Armed Forces beyond Lanao del Norte to the Liguasan Marsh towns in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.
In its pursuit, the government unilaterally lifted the ceasefire in three of 19 areas in Mindanao where the MILF has armed units.
At one point, the government went to the extent of disbanding its peace panel to show disgust at MILF strikes. As usual, the MILF said it was merely exercising its “right to self-defense.”
Children in midst of war
The humanitarian tragedy that has befallen civilians, who fled their homes to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, has put into question all justifications for waging war.
Teacher Noime Pua’s schoolchildren may be too young to understand the horror of the war but they certainly felt it that June day in their classrooms as the Army guns thundered around them.
This town is now a major evacuation site and Pua’s wards are among the nearly 600,000 civilians displaced by the conflict. For nearly a year since the resurgence of fighting, the frightening sound of artillery guns was almost a daily fare for them.
Last July, the government and the MILF finally agreed to cease hostilities.
It may be another of those shaky truces in the long running war but for now Datu Gumbay Piang’s schoolchildren can study their lessons in relative peace.
Correcting ‘historical injustices’
Second of four parts; 09/26/2009
MARAWI CITY, Philippines — AT A RALLY OF thousands of Maranao people demanding resumption of peace talks, a man in his mid-50s came forward and urged the mostly young crowd to “be prepared to fight to win back our homeland.”
“I have warned you before: This government is only toying with our aspiration for self-determination,” the man cried out. His two sons had died as warriors in the Moro rebellion.
The scene was a plaza in Marawi and the rally was in 2006 soon after the peace talks between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) hit a snag over the issue of territory.
The impasse in the talks spurred a reemergence of extremist thinking in Lanao del Sur, according to an MILF member who translated the man’s thundering speech in Maranao for the Inquirer.
Thus, the crafting of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) two years later, in 2008, was seen in predominantly Muslim communities, including Marawi, as a historic breakthrough in the peace effort.
The accord marked the boldest attempt yet to redraw the country’s sociopolitical landscape and accommodate the hopes of a minority people.
Ironically, the MOA-AD also became a great source of peril for the peace process.
Opposed in many non-Muslim communities, it sparked renewed fighting in several Mindanao provinces. Amid the uproar, the Supreme Court struck down the accord as unconstitutional “in its present form.”
Mindanao State University Prof. Rudy Rodil, former vice chair of the government peace panel, said the MOA-AD could have paved the way for a comprehensive settlement because it embodied a “totality of solutions” to the Bangsamoro problem.
‘Mother agreement’
An earlier accord signed in Libya in 2001 under the auspices of the Gadhafi charitable foundation set out the framework for a political solution.
Called the “mother agreement,” the Tripoli accord cited ancestral domain as one of the three key issues the government and the MILF needed to reach a consensus on. The others were security and rehabilitation of war-torn communities.
The three issues were considered necessary to make self-determination a reality for the Moro people. A consensus on ancestral domain would correct “historical injustices” against the Moros, experts on Moro affairs said.
Bangsamoro (Moro nation) refers to the collective identity—equal to nationhood—of 13 ethnolinguistic tribes in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan bonded by Islamic faith. Owing to its historical roots, it is an identity distinct from being Filipino.
As a political entity, the Bangsamoro predates Philippine statehood.
3 states, not 1
Rodil, a historian, said that when the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Spain was signed in 1898, there were formal three states existing in the archipelago—the sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao, and the Philippines.
The Sulu sultanate was established in 1450, around 70 years after the Islamic faith was introduced in the region, while the Maguindanao sultanate arose in 1619, a little over a century after Islam reached the Mindanao mainland. Philippine independence was declared in 1898.
With the American pacification campaigns, the Moros and Filipinos became intertwined in a similar political fate, Rodil stressed.
Torrens title
Rodil said the Americans watered down the political strengths of the traditional leaders. With relatively effective control of the islands, they also introduced the alien Torrens titling system.
This meant invalidating the land rights granted by the traditional leaders in favor of state-sanctioned rights.
Rodil said major public land laws passed in 1919 and 1936 went against the Moros and leaned toward homesteaders who were primarily Christian migrants from the Visayas and Luzon, and to corporations.
These accelerated migration into Mindanao, driving away the Moros and indigenous peoples from their “untitled” lands.
Referendum after 50 years
In 1924, Moro leaders issued the Zamboanga Declaration asking the United States to declare Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan as “unorganized territories.”
They also called for a referendum to be held 50 years later to determine the peoples’ political future—much like the US protectorate state arrangements in Guam, Saipan and Puerto Rico.
The declaration was issued in light of a US plan to hand over rule of the islands to Filipinos, starting with a Commonwealth setup.
Moro liberation advocates considered immoral the “annexation” of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan into Philippine territory through the 1935 Constitution and the 1946 independence grant.
Thus, the structures of subjugation persisted, the experts on Moro affairs said.
National identity
Datu Michael Mastura, a senior member of the MILF panel, said the Moro people were only demanding to secure “what is left of us now” by seeking to reverse “lopsided” policies in the state’s current legal framework.
These historical tidbits explain the discomfort of Moro rebel leaders when discussions touch on the Constitution.
“They are very sensitive to that word,” Rodil said.
If the Moro rebels acquiesce to the Constitution, they will be seen as bowing to the terms of colonial subjugation, instead of defending the Moros’ national identity.
Even then, they are Philippine citizens by legal reality, Moro lawyer Musib Buat said.
Meaning of freedom shows deep rift in Moro issue
Third of four parts; 09/27/2009
MANILA, Philippines—So contentious were the talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on the issue of ancestral domain that the two sides took nearly four months to agree on the meaning of the word “freedom.”
The Malaysia-brokered talks kicked off in April 2005. It took the negotiators more than three years to craft a deal, called the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).
Ready for signing, it collapsed to the sound of gunfire.
Maulana Alonto, a member of the MILF panel, recalled the haggling “started with a compromise: That the government stop invoking its Constitution and the MILF drop its independence bid.”
The compromise allowed the panels to reach a consensus beyond the strictures of the Constitution, which they agreed was not designed to accommodate the “legitimate aspirations of the Bangsamoro,” according to former Mindanao State University Prof. Rudy Rodil, then vice chair of the government panel.
“It took three months and 23 days to discuss the word ‘freedom,’ making sure that the provisions using such word should not sound like independence,” Rodil said.
When asked to describe the language of the agreement, Rodil said: “It is constructive ambiguity.”
“What is written is not necessarily understandable to the layman, but it reflects the sense and substance of the negotiation with sensitivity to the feelings of the groups involved,” he said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo highlighted that sensitivity in a letter to then Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi on May 6, 2008.
Ms Arroyo told Badawi that “the principle of self-determination for the Bangsamoro shall preclude any future interpretation to include independence, even as parallel strategies are explored on how these commitments can be fulfilled, either through the existing legal framework or under efforts to amend it…”
The discussion on territory was the longest, taking 14 months, with the MILF originally demanding that a proposed Bangsamoro homeland cover 3,978 barangays.
It was such a ticklish issue that it was not discussed frontally, Rodil said. Position papers had to be coursed through the Malaysian facilitator.
Homeland area
Using a mix of parameters, the two parties pared down the list to the final figure of 735 barangays. They were to be added to the core homeland area comprising six Lanao del Norte towns that voted for inclusion into the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in a 2001 plebiscite and the present ARMM.
A “special intervention area” was identified comprising 1,459 villages.
One parameter is the historical geographic expanse of the sultanates using maps developed from studies on the subject. This explains the inclusion, among others, of villages in Iligan and Zamboanga cities.
Another parameter is the predominance of the Moro population in a given village.
Plebiscite required
Rodil emphasized that a plebiscite was to be held for 735 villages within 12 months from the signing of the MOA-AD, and within 25 years for 1,459 villages.
The plebiscite would determine if the residents would like to be included in the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE), the expanded self-governing territory.
“It was still unthinkable for me why the MILF agreed on a plebiscite, which is a constitutional process, when it has consistently refused to use or refer to such word,” Rodil said.
He said the MILF’s approval hastened the deal.
“We had so many moments of darkness … The big step that we were looking for was having the MILF sign [the MOA-AD],” Rodil said.
Rodil said mutual trust enabled the two sides to hurdle the thorny issues.
But the success came to naught when sensitive provisions of the MOA-AD—previously undisclosed—were published, sparking a political uproar, re-igniting socio-cultural tensions and resurrecting supposedly forgotten biases.
The claim of the Bangsamoro people for respect of what remains of their ancestral homeland is distinctly political. But the issue has split not only the people of Mindanao but the nation as well along religious lines, principally between Christians and Muslims.
Rodil said that historically, “religion was just an accident to the division; it was more of colonialism, the Christian Spaniards, and later Americans, colonizing and the Moros resisting.”
Little understanding of Mindanao
Peace activist Gus Miclat said biased views were largely borne by a lack of understanding of Mindanao’s social dynamics owing to poor knowledge of its history.
The constituency of those opposed to the MOA-AD was so huge that Ms Arroyo was apparently shaken.
A strong anti-Arroyo lobby also militated against Charter change before 2010, which supporters of the deal said could have been an opportunity to carry out a “constitutional correction” to accommodate the peace process consensus.
In an unexpected reaction to the upheaval against the accord, Malacañang went to the extent of seemingly disowning involvement in producing the fruit of a laborious process.
Palace washes hands
Rodil recalled that during the oral argument in the Supreme Court on the MOA-AD, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera told the magistrates that the government panel had no authority to sign the proposed homeland deal.
“There was nothing that we committed in Malaysia that did not pass through a battery of lawyers [or was] not considered by the Palace,” Rodil stressed.
Numbers play won’t solve Moro problem
Last of four parts; 09/28/2009
SULTAN KUDARAT, MAGUINDANAO—“History has shown that war cannot resolve this conflict which continues to spawn the Moro struggle. Neither can we defeat the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”
The words came from Mohagher Iqbal, chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace panel who has spent more than three decades in the Moro liberation struggle.
“The most civilized way (to end the conflict) is through a negotiated political settlement,” Iqbal told journalists in July during an Army offensive against rebel positions.
Iqbal’s remarks suggest the equal primacy the MILF places on negotiations to achieve its revolutionary objectives after 32 years of rebellion.
In his book, “The Long Road to Peace,” MILF official Salah Jubair wrote that the MILF considers its conflict with the government not in the “nature of eternal contradiction but political—which can be resolved politically.”
Another Jubair account said that since its inception, the MILF “had firmly valued, as a matter of policy, the wisdom of conducting dialogues in lieu of armed confrontation in the resolution of even the most difficult cases of conflict.”
Moving from war
Today, as the rebels prepare for the resumption of another round of talks, the issue of ancestral domain—which relit the flames of hostilities last year—will likely be the same platform from which the talks could move forward, unless a new framework for negotiations replaces the 2001 Tripoli accord.
Restarting the process soonest will be an opportunity for measuring the rebels’ word—and the firmness of the “all-out peace” policy of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose term of office ends in nine months.
Primarily, the peace panels will have to contend with the Supreme Court ruling that the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) “in its present form” is unconstitutional. In a meeting in July, the two panels committed to “reframe the consensus points” of the ancestral domain agenda.
As a result of the MOA-AD debacle, the MILF has sought a guarantee mechanism, likely from the international community, to ensure that both parties to a consensus comply with their commitments.
‘Law follows reality’
“A final peace agreement will require constitutional changes to accommodate the legitimate demands of the Bangsamoro people. The present Charter is not designed to accommodate these,” said Rudy Rodil, former vice chair of the government panel.
Marvic Leonen, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law, stressed that the Constitution must recognize the “multiethnic, multidimensional, polyvocal character of Philippine society” and embody “what we can aspire for.”
“Law follows reality,” Leonen told an international conference on Mindanao in March.
In her May 6, 2008, letter to then Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, Ms Arroyo spelled out the opportunity that Charter change offers for a negotiated peace settlement.
“… Issues of a constitutional nature, excluding independence, can be taken up with the framers when such an opportunity becomes evident. Such an opportunity may come soon because 16 senators have signed a resolution for constitutional change and a large number of members of the House of Representatives have expressed support for it,” Ms Arroyo said.
Firestorm of controversy
But suspicions that amending the Constitution might be a ploy to prolong Ms Arroyo in power beyond 2010 stirred a firestorm of controversy and derailed the Cha-cha.
Even peace advocates oppose changing the Charter until a new president sits in 2010. This has somewhat tempered expectations on when peace would finally dawn.
Soliciting public support for a negotiated political formula is another challenge.
“What we are solving here is a minority problem. It cannot be worked out through the traditional process of superiority of numbers which is, after all, sham democracy,” Rodil said.
Importance of plebiscite
Some have called for transparency at every turn of the negotiations.
“If it (negotiation) was opened from the very start, it would have been shot down earlier,” Rodil said.
He cited the need to define “consultations,” the supposed lack of which had angered local politicians—and which might have helped impel the Supreme Court to nullify the MOA-AD.
There is nothing more consultative than a plebiscite, which takes into account the opinion not only of the political leaders but also the people, Rodil argued.
Clarifying a previous statement attributed to him, Rodil stressed that as far as the two panels could perceive as of now, the MOA-AD was a comprehensive compact with the government—not merely an accord on ancestral domain—that should embody the “totality of solutions” to the Bangsamoro problem.
Oblate priest Eliseo Mercado Jr., a veteran peace activist, said the issues of credibility and legitimacy that had hounded the Arroyo administration made it difficult for some to accept bold political initiatives on Mindanao.
Like Blair
For Iqbal, a comprehensive compact is still possible “if Ms Arroyo has political will.”
He noted that the Good Friday Agreement that settled the conflict in northern Ireland was reached in the twilight years of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s incumbency.
Still, despite Ms Arroyo’s unpopularity, her administration has succeeded in moving forward the negotiations. A year after then President Joseph Estrada declared an “all-out war” against the rebels, Ms Arroyo revived the talks with the MILF.
It was also during the Arroyo administration that the 2001 Tripoli Agreement on Peace was signed. Critical mechanisms were established, including the third-party role in monitoring ceasefire violations and an ad hoc group to curb the activities of lawless bands, such as the Abu Sayyaf bandits.
Challenge ahead
Rodil said both sides had also made sure there would be no conflict between a peace deal with the MILF and the 1996 accord with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The envisioned pact with the MILF would even enhance the 1996 agreement, he said.
It has been 13 years since Manila forged peace with MNLF chief Nur Misuari. Now the door is open again for a settlement with another major separatist group.
Whether peace will finally flower in Mindanao after decades of conflict and the squeals of happy children replace the booms of Army cannons near Datu Gumba Piang Elementary School is the challenge facing Ms Arroyo, or the new president after her.
Cannon fire brings war’s horrors to Mindanao schools (First of four parts)
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090925-226809/Cannon-fire-brings-wars-horrors-to-Mindanao-schools
Correcting ‘historical injustices’ (Second of four parts)
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20090926-226949/Correcting-historical-injustices
Meaning of freedom shows deep rift in Moro issue (Third of four parts)
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090927-227084/Meaning-of-freedom-shows-deep-rift-in-Moro-issue
Numbers play won’t solve Moro problem (Last of four parts)
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090928-227237/Numbers_play_won%92t_solve_Moro_problem
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