"If anything can go wrong,it will." This is known as Murphy's Law and anyone who takes it lightly courts catastrophe.
Sure enough, many things that could go wrong in negotiating with a minority did go wrong -- and in a spectacular way.
It is what happens when recycled war-hawks (retired generals), instead of diplomats and men of probity, are entrusted with the delicate task of peace-making.
Among the main actors in the present crisis are retired AFP chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr., presidential peace process adviser, retired Major General Rodolfo Garcia, chair of the negotiating panel, retired general and now Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, and National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales.
Unschooled in the intricacies of diplomacy and democratic processes, they plunged gung-ho into their assignment to meet a deadline imposed by a presidential SONA (State-of-the-Nation-Address).
Was it their objective to produce a document for signing, leaving consequences to be sorted out later? Did they expect that negotiations can be done with military precision?
So sensitive and explosive an issue as ancestral domain requires broad consultations with the Lumads, the Muslims, and the rest; but no public consultations took place.
Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them; so they must be consulted.
A signatory to an agreement must have unquestioned signing authority; but neither the affected local governments nor the Congress gave them the go-signal.
Ceding a substantial territory requires a plebiscite; but none was held.
They simply announced a breakthrough and scheduled the formal signing in a foreign land, thereby intensifying fears of foreign intervention while heightening apprehensions at home.
It does not help that there's persistent doubt about the legitimacy of the top leadership.
Utmost caution and propriety was overlooked.
The negotiators seemed to have no idea of what's publicly acceptable, nor whether their grounds are legally unimpeachable.
It isn't clear if they grasped the political nature of the process, or that its outcome must have political, social and legal acceptability.
They pitted the military mind against the insurgent mind, and thus reduced the negotiation into a contest of wills between narrow-gauged mindsets.
In an issue like this, the people's views are paramount.
Their sentiments must be ascertained. And it must be done before, not after the signing.
But the negotiators went ahead and presumed that Mindanawons would swallow whatever they served up.
Without showing the draft, they asked everyone to take their word blindly.
It was late in the game, on July 24, when members of the press got copies of the draft.
That was the day copies were given to retired generals in Camp Aguinaldo -- another huge mistake as the generals are not in charge of our society.
Three days later, on July 27, both sides initialed the final draft -- then flew to Malaysia for the ceremonial signing, the US ambassador joining.
Obviously it didn't occur to them that in signing the agreement, they placed the government on the same side as the MILF and all dissenters on the opposite side.
Did they consider what would happen if majority of the people were to reject the agreement?
The government would be in the untenable position of being arrayed against its people.
But they say it's now a done deal. So we face a crisis.
Is there hope? There certainly is.
But it requires uncommon attention, focus and statesmanship from us as a community.
It has been an oft-repeated plaint that we, sovereign citizens, are powerless, that we are without influence.
This is so because we are voiceless and do not make ourselves heard.
Well, this is our test.
There is in every community a neglected mechanism, which the law defines as the "forum wherein the collective views of the people may be expressed, crystallized and considered." (Section 384, Role of the Barangay, R.A. 7160.) It is the Barangay Assembly, the one the elite residents ignore.
Let us urge every community to convene this Assembly and deliberate on the fate of our island: how we want ancestral domain decided, how we want our peoples to coexist in harmony and cooperation so peace and progress will come at last.
Let us openly and frankly express and exchange views - facilitated by prayerful groups and academics, if possible, with everyone in attendance.
Let it be the democratic assembly, orderly, deliberative, that the law has long enjoined every community to activate. So that for once, the democratic process will resonate at the grassroots, community by community, barangay by barangay.
And let our leaders, the Mayor and the Councilors, lead in this societal undertaking so the true voice of our community will emerge, not simulated by demagogues.
And let the assemblage adopt at the end of it a declaration or statement of consensus that will make it clear to all that the people do have a voice and a political will that may no longer be taken for granted.
Let this consensus-building forum be the model for every Mindanao community on how to exemplify an assertive brand of sovereignty, one that speaks out and acts to secure the common good, instead of letting armed groups and vested interests resolve our problems.
With this end in view, the Gising Barangay Movement offers itself at the service of the mayor, the city council and the 80 barangays of Cagayan de Oro.
(Manuel Valdehuesa was a secretary-general of the Peace Negotiating Panel for Mindanao and the Cordilleras during the Aquino administration. He now heads the Gising Barangay Movement. Read him here Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. Email: valdeman_esq@yahoo.com.)
