Saturday, August 16, 2008 Ledesma: It is about the liberation of Mindanao By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
THE Social Weather Station had consistently reported how badly President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is doing in its surveys. Even with the overall performance of her administration gaining some plus points in the surveys, her popularity continues to plunge.
Of course this is not a popularity contest but SWS and the political opposition make a big issue out of this ironic and countervailing data. This is an indicator that some of her political allies grab the credit leaving her to fend off critics.
In Davao City for example, she set aside an emergency fund of P206 million from the presidential fund for the construction of Bankerohan Bridge that collapsed, but somebody else grabs the credit. Despite her being dubbed as "Taray Queen" GMA just do not give a damn about every Tom, Dick, and Harry who want to upstage her.
If we go by the SWS surveys, President Arroyo remains to be the most unpopular president this country ever had. But what is this that the political opposition is hysterically complaining? They are so pregnant about PGMA's running again if the Constitution is going to be changed? Nene Pimentel had majority of the senators agreed to his proposal for a federal form of government. Except for the so-called presidentiables among them, everybody thought that Pimentel's idea is good for the health of the country.
Lately however, when PGMA opened her mouth and endorsed the proposal, the morbid fear of the political opposition and the radicals in the street went berserk and branded the idea of Charter change as Arroyo's grand design for a political comeback after 2010.
If the president is that unpopular, why the sudden violent resistance to Pimentel's agenda?
By the way, it is not quite accurate to say that cha-cha was just a recent invention of the administration to perpetuate Arroyo in power. Charter change was actually the centerpiece of her platform when she was campaigning for president.
All this talk about the president plotting to run anew is just plain paranoia. That part of the present Constitution that limits the term of the president to just one term without reelection can actually be carried over to the proposed Charter.
The agenda behind all these hullabaloos, I suspect, is merely to discredit PGMA in every turn because making her popular would be a big boost to whoever will be the administration candidate. That's what bedevils this nation.
I personally think that Pimentel's Federal form of government is better than the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, which was crafted by the MILF and the government panels negotiating for peace. The MOA impinges on territories, security, and natural resources. It looks like a precursor of an independent state, which was MILF original and still is a covert agenda.
The MOA is divisive and is driving us to the resumption of war. Federalism, on the other hand, will allow an expanded autonomy for the Armm, assuming of course that predominantly Muslim provinces that had previously rejected the Armm will now support a Federal State for Muslim Mindanao. The process will be more transparent and the decision process will be left entirely to the people and not to the MILF and the government panels alone.
We have seen the preview of what will happen the moment the MOA on Ancestral domain shall have been finally signed. Even with just the announcement that the draft had already been initialed, marauders earlier suspected to be renegade elements of the MILF started creeping into Christian and lumad territories.
The other day, the MILF hierarchy declared and confirmed that Kummander Umbra Kato is never a renegade but one of their top military commanders. In effect, the MILF leaders are backing up all the actions and movements initiated by Umbra.
So there you are. I am afraid that with Kummander Umbra given his legitimacy, the prospect of the MOA on AD will be doomed assuming it has not yet. The MILF, on the other hand, issued another strong statement on the possibility that the MOA will not pass the Supreme Court's better judgment. In case of failure, it said, it may pursue as an option "armed struggle" to liberate the Moro people. Well, at least that is quite clear.
But it is not only the Moro people that should be liberated from the oppressive imperial Manila. Christians and Lumads of Mindanao are in similar condition.
That is why there is a clarion cry for federalism. Those who demonstrate against PGMA on the perception that she will perpetuate herself in power via cha-cha misses the point by the mile.
The salivating politicians who want to ascend into the presidency are playing ignoramuses on the painful fact that one of the primordial reasons why there is a going sentiment for federalism in Mindanao is to finally put an end to the iniquitous centralized government which we have now.
