Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Editorials: Intransigent Moro
WHAT the Muslim extremists in the south are planning to do, they are keeping it close to their hearts.
Certainly, they are not doing what they did the other day just to satisfy a whim, or to taunt the Armed Forces.
It is obvious that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is trying to prove a point.
The Philippine government has long been trying to forge a peace settlement with Muslim separatists.
The first one was with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) whose strength had waned during the closing days of the Marcos regime.
But when Cory Aquino became president, she blundered in trying to use the MNLF to earn her initial points.
The MNLF took advantage of it and, in due time, was back in the limelight.
The result was the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with Nur Misuari, the MNLF chieftain, as the first governor.
Agreement
But discontented members organized a separate group, the MILF.
Desiring to prove it can do better than the discredited Misuari, the MILF sowed trouble, allying with foreign Muslim extremist movements.
It almost got a sort of modus vivendi with the Arroyo government had the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on ancestral domain been signed.
The signing of the MOA, “which seeks to carve out a larger territory for the Mindanao’s Muslims,” was aborted by a Supreme Court.
The MOA would have established a separate Muslim state called the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.
It is the MILF’s expanded version of the ARMM, proving it is a step better than the MNLF’s autonomous region.
rustration
The bloody attack of the MILF last Monday on some villages could be an expression of frustration on the part of the Moro rebels.
They must have believed they had won the “argument” with the Arroyo government, considering that even before the MOA was signed in Malaysia, elements of the MILF had already occupied two dozen villages in Cotabato.
The MILF has already shown its motive and true intent.
Their true objective is not to assimilate with the national government, and integrate with the Filipino mainstream.
Its probable goal is to break up the republic and establish a separate Muslim state.
