DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / January 27, 2014
So it was cast. The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed the final normalization annex in the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) with a bonus to the MILF called the addendum on Bangsamoro waters to the power sharing annex that would cede parts of Yllana Bay, the Moro Gulf and the Sulu Sea to the rebel group.
The normalization annex even seems to have veered totally from its intent of a disarmament agreement with the government negotiators now talking of “socio-economic issues and transitional justice for the Bangsamoro people.” The alibi was that these provisions were not included in previous peace agreements.
“Normalization does not only deal with the decommissioning of MILF,” Teresita Quintos Deles, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, said.
The statements were an oblique admission that no disarmament was really agreed on and it was set aside just to complete the FAB and proceed to the signing of the comprehensive agreement on Bangsamoro that would finally realize the creation of the substate for the MILF.
The surrender of territory to the MILF under the FAB was even greater than what was envisioned under the botched Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) of the previous administration, which incidentally was ruled as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (SC).
The MoA-AD was ready for signing in Kuala Lumpur, the same venue where the Bangsamoro agreement is being forged, and would have been in force if not for the timely intervention of the SC.
The MoA-AD did not even have a provision that included the yielding of the country’s seas yet it was thumbed down as violating the Constitution.
The premise of the rejection was that the MoA-AD sought to create a substate with its own basic law or Constitution, police force and an internal security force which were all granted the MILF under the FAB.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, an ally of Noynoy invited to the signing ceremony for the normalization annex in Kuala Lumpur, warned the government negotiators that they may have promised too much that Congress may reject anyway when the final agreement is sent to the legislature for approval.
Pimentel’s guarded view on the current negotiation process is evidently borne out of the aftermath of the SC rejection of the MoA-AD that resulted in the pillaging of Mindanao communities by disappointed MILF members which the government and the MILF later tagged as breakaway groups of the rebels.
From then on, it seems the MILF breakaway groups initiate disruptive campaigns whenever the negotiations between the MILF and the government reached a contentious point something like the MILF pointing a shotgun at the government’s head.
The FAB, which would become the basis of the CAB, is clearly headed the same way as that of the MoA-AD through sheer comparison of the likely form of the CAB and the MoA-AD.
The MILF’s view is the forming of a substate against the insistence of the government that a mere political subdivision is being formed through the Bangsamoro.
Proof of the false notion that the MILF had formed about the negotiations was some MILF forces jumping the gun on the setting up of a Bangsamoro political office in Zamboanga City which appears to be a de facto diplomatic post.
What the government obviously impressed on the MILF was the Bangsamoro would be a state all its own.
A state within a state is unconstitutional, the SC had spoken.
So it was cast. The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed the final normalization annex in the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) with a bonus to the MILF called the addendum on Bangsamoro waters to the power sharing annex that would cede parts of Yllana Bay, the Moro Gulf and the Sulu Sea to the rebel group.
The normalization annex even seems to have veered totally from its intent of a disarmament agreement with the government negotiators now talking of “socio-economic issues and transitional justice for the Bangsamoro people.” The alibi was that these provisions were not included in previous peace agreements.
“Normalization does not only deal with the decommissioning of MILF,” Teresita Quintos Deles, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, said.
The statements were an oblique admission that no disarmament was really agreed on and it was set aside just to complete the FAB and proceed to the signing of the comprehensive agreement on Bangsamoro that would finally realize the creation of the substate for the MILF.
The surrender of territory to the MILF under the FAB was even greater than what was envisioned under the botched Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) of the previous administration, which incidentally was ruled as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (SC).
The MoA-AD was ready for signing in Kuala Lumpur, the same venue where the Bangsamoro agreement is being forged, and would have been in force if not for the timely intervention of the SC.
The MoA-AD did not even have a provision that included the yielding of the country’s seas yet it was thumbed down as violating the Constitution.
The premise of the rejection was that the MoA-AD sought to create a substate with its own basic law or Constitution, police force and an internal security force which were all granted the MILF under the FAB.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, an ally of Noynoy invited to the signing ceremony for the normalization annex in Kuala Lumpur, warned the government negotiators that they may have promised too much that Congress may reject anyway when the final agreement is sent to the legislature for approval.
Pimentel’s guarded view on the current negotiation process is evidently borne out of the aftermath of the SC rejection of the MoA-AD that resulted in the pillaging of Mindanao communities by disappointed MILF members which the government and the MILF later tagged as breakaway groups of the rebels.
From then on, it seems the MILF breakaway groups initiate disruptive campaigns whenever the negotiations between the MILF and the government reached a contentious point something like the MILF pointing a shotgun at the government’s head.
The FAB, which would become the basis of the CAB, is clearly headed the same way as that of the MoA-AD through sheer comparison of the likely form of the CAB and the MoA-AD.
The MILF’s view is the forming of a substate against the insistence of the government that a mere political subdivision is being formed through the Bangsamoro.
Proof of the false notion that the MILF had formed about the negotiations was some MILF forces jumping the gun on the setting up of a Bangsamoro political office in Zamboanga City which appears to be a de facto diplomatic post.
What the government obviously impressed on the MILF was the Bangsamoro would be a state all its own.
A state within a state is unconstitutional, the SC had spoken.
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