OZAMIZ CITY -- The Bangsamoro peace process should take off from the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the landmark pact signed by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) more than two years ago after 17 years of negotiations.
This is the view of the MILF and civil society groups in light of the preparations of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in assuming the presidency on June 30.
In a statement posted on its official website, the MILF said it expects the incoming Duterte administration to “start where the Aquino administration left off, which.... (is) to work for the early passage of BBL in Congress.”
BBL refers to the Bangsamoro Basic Law, the proposed charter of the new autonomous entity to replace the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) and embody far greater governance powers consistent with the consensus contained in the CAB.
The MILF explained that this expectation is based on what has become “established protocols” in the peace process across four presidential administrations.
“In essence, the principle that has long been followed by the Parties in their long and harsh negotiation is that... they will continue and start from (where) they stopped or (were) forced to discontinue. The principle of ‘as is, where is’ applies,” the MILF pointed out.
The temporary halt in the process may be a consequence of major obstacles like all-out war or shortness of time of the administration in power like that of President Fidel V. Ramos, but still the protocol is observed, the group added.
“Thus, the negotiation during the Estrada administration proceeded from and built upon the gains of the negotiation during the Ramos administration, so on and so forth up to the Arroyo administration,” it emphasized.
Toward the end of the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2010, the parties inked a Declaration of Continuity for Peace Negotiation. The MILF hopes a similar instrument can be forged with the outgoing administration of President Benigno Aquino III.
On the peace front, Aquino will be handing over to Duterte a mutually agreed political formula to end the Moro rebellion through the CAB, and a consensus draft charter for meaningful autonomy through the proposed BBL.
Unlike in the previous presidencies after Ramos, the current transition will not be about continuity in negotiations but continuity in the implementation of a peace agreement, the MILF emphasized.
“Strictly speaking, at present, there is no more negotiation; peace process, yes, the Parties are still engaged. But the issues deliberated on are subsidiary matters like serious ceasefire violations, socio-economic interventions, transitional justice, and others,” the MILF statement read.
Moot?
On May 18, incoming Davao del Norte Representative Pantaleon Alvarez, who is expected to be a shoo-in in the race for House Speaker, said the Bangsamoro peace process will be back to square one under the Duterte presidency, and the BBL rendered moot by his plan to shift to a federal form of government.
Carmen Lauzon-Gatmaytan of the Women Engagement in Action on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (WEAct) said Alvarez’s pronouncement is “very surprising.”
She wonders if this is now the perspective of the incoming Duterte administration on the peace process as “this seems inconsistent with the earlier pronouncements of Duterte himself.”
Peace activist Augusto Miclat, convenor of the All-Out Peace (AOP) consortium, said it would be prudent to take off from Duterte’s own statement that “nothing short of the BBL will appease the Moro people.”
Miclat noted that during the presidential debates, his visit in the MILF’s Camp Darapanan, and in a conversation with several peace advocates, Duterte acknowledged that federalism is a rather longer term option of entrenching the power sharing consensus contained in the CAB.
This could be the reason why he recognized the need to have a BBL as an immediate option, Miclat added.
Miclat also warned against doing away the gains already achieved by the succession of peace negotiations with Moro rebels.
“Let’s take it from the FAB (Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro) and the CAB (Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro),” Miclat pointed out.
In an earlier statement issued in the wake of Congress' failure to enact the BBL, the nongovernment group Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) lamented the lost opportunity for “provid(ing) the clearest answer yet to the long-simmering Mindanao Question that has drawn tears, sweat, blood and lives from many of our generations, past and present alike.”
“For now, the BBL serves as yet another, blazing footnote on the long list of peace efforts for Mindanao. But looking deeper, should we now leave it at that?” the IID said.
Recycled issues?
In criticizing the proposed BBL, Alvarez took swipes at the Aquino administration for supposedly failing to do public hearings on the BBL hence it was roundly rejected by Congress.
In the past, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) has repeatedly debunked the notion that there was lack of consultations prior to the signing of the CAB and in the coming up of the draft BBL.
Opapp counted 553 consultations that it has been part of in relation to the BBL. Notable among these are 10 sessions with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), six with the sultanates in Mindanao, 32 with indigenous peoples, and 100 with local government leaders. The House ad hoc committee on the BBL also did over 50 public hearings, not only in Mindanao but in key localities of the country.
Civil society groups also did at least 300 consultations in relation to the drafting of the BBL.