Monday, August 08, 2005
Poll system faces test in ARMM today
COTABATO — Soldiers and police are on full alert as more than a million Muslims go to the polls in the southern Philippines today to elect a new government for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Up for grabs will be the governorship of the ARMM, the vice-governorship and 24 legislative assembly seats. The ARMM, which has a bloody history of factional violence and Islamic insurgency, includes five predominantly Muslim provinces and a city.
“Let us have an election that is free from goons, guns and gold,” President Arroyo said. The candidates are led by eight Muslim leaders vying for the governorship of the sprawling region, considered the country’s poorest.
For Arroyo and the embattled Commission on Elections (Comelec), this will also be a test of credibility, on the heels of accusations that the President manipulated results of last year’s votes.
At least 17,000 soldiers and policemen will guard polling sites.
Marine Brig. Gen. Ben Dolorfino, who heads a force securing the elections, said military and police forces are on alert to thwart possible attacks by the Abu Sayyaf, which has been blamed for deadly bomb attacks in the past.
More than 500 villages were being closely watched because of their records of intense political or clan rivalries, the presence of Muslim insurgents and past electoral violence, Dolorfino said.
Despite security jitters, Dolorfino said no violence has been monitored in the days ahead of the elections.
Five men were caught in separate incidents for violating a ban on the carrying of firearms in public places, raising hopes the polls would be peaceful.
The United States, Great Britain, Canada and New Zealand will send representatives to observe the elections, officials said.
“The armed forces and the national police will be there to safeguard the vote, with strict instructions to be non-partisan and fair,” President Arroyo said in a statement, urging Muslims to “protect the integrity of the polls.”
But some analysts say the polls are irrelevant to the region’s problems.
When ARMM came into being in the early 1990s, after decades of bloody separatist conflict, it offered fresh hope to the country’s large Muslim minority of four to five million by giving them their own executive, legislature and judiciary.
Today the ARMM, which takes in five provinces — Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur — plus the city of Marawi, is among the country’s poorest regions.
The region covers about 12,000 square kilometers of rich agricultural land, but growth has been stunted by war and clan conflict between the Muslim factions, some with alleged links to foreign militants.
Peace deal
The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) dropped its separatist demands and signed a historic peace accord with the government in 1996.
But the front has been plagued by divisions, with a major faction boycotting Monday’s elections.
Another rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), is holding Malaysian-brokered peace talks with the government. The MILF, which has been fighting for an independent Muslim homeland, said it will not participate in the elections but would not stop members from voting.
The ARMM was created as a “carrot” to the MNLF, recognized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference as the representative body for Filipino Muslims. Its chief Nur Misuari was then elected ARMM governor.
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars being channeled into the ARMM, Misuari failed to usher in economic growth — two out three people in the region live in poverty and only one in 10 children complete basic education.
Misuari fell from grace and carried out a fresh rebellion in 2001, only to land up in a jail outside of Manila.
Ineffective
His successor at the helm of the ARMM, another MNLF stalwart Parouk Hussin, has been ineffective with President Arroyo throwing her support behind a non-MNLF candidate from a large Muslim political clan.
The Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, a splinter group of the MNLF, were excluded from the MNLF-Manila deal.
“The question is, is the ARMM still relevant? Since it was established, there has been little improvement in the lives of the people. The quality of life is actually retrogressing, not progressing,” Zainudin Malang, head of the Center for Moro Law and Policy Concerns, told AFP.
“A vast number of people don’t care. ARMM is no longer relevant to their lives and as a political vehicle autonomy needs to be re-examined,” he said. “There is little sympathy for autonomy, there is little awareness of what the regional government has done and there is little knowledge of who the people are in the ARMM.”
“We will be electing a new leader but the ARMM future is uncertain,” Malang said, urging the government to examine alternatives such as a federal state.
The government may be using the ARMM election to ease out former rebels, said Julkipli Wadi, an Islamic studies professor at the University of the Philippines.
“The government is pushing for the isolation of the MNLF to the fringes of the ARMM,” Wadi said, warning that this may lead to another round of violence.
“This may mean they may be forced to strengthen their forces on the ground. That is dangerous because we can’t afford another round of tension in the ARMM,” Wadi said. (AFP/AP)
(August 8, 2005 issue)
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