DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/1 May) – Mindanawon Senator Teofisto Guingona III and ARMM OIC Governor Mujiv Hataman have commended the Philippine government (GPH) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace panels for signing the “Decision Points on Principles as of April 2012,” the framework agreement that would guide their negotiations for a final, comprehensive agreement. But the governors in the five-province Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and former North Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Pinol, have kept mum on the issue.
In an April 30 statement, Guingona, chair of the Senate Peace Unification and Reconciliation Committee, commended the GPH and MILF and the third-party institutions involved in the talks,
for the agreement signed April 24 in Kuala Lumpur, the first major agreement of the two parties under the 22-month old Aquino administration.
As legislator, he said, he would “continue to study the issue and listen to all possible views so that when the time comes that a law will be needed to reflect the aspirations of this entire process, I will be ready to participate in the process of creating such measure.”
As Mindanawon, he said he would “continue to participate in and even lead consultations that have been, in my opinion, one of the most important reasons why progress has been made in the negotiations and in the broader aim of addressing the legitimate grievances and claims of the Bangsamoro people.”
As Filipino, Guingona said he would “ensure that agreements reached will be beneficial to the Philippines and its citizens.”
“The final agreement should be an agreement of the Filipino people and among Filipinos. Dapat maintindihan ng bawat Pilipino ang dahilan at ang hangarin kung bakit ginagawa natin ang mga ito” (Every Filipino must understand the reasons and aims on why we are doing this), he said.
The other Mindanawon senator, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel, told MindaNews in a text message Monday that he had not read the agreement but added that the peace negotiations with the MILF “has to be all inclusive (including the Lumads) to make it binding and government proposal must be based on tried/tested formula to quell violent secessionist movements. That formula is the adoption of a federal Philippines.[]/a> with |||
If not all inclusive, tomorrow another group will rise and claim we were not a part of the negotiations for peace in Mindanao.”
One of the 10 “decision points” is that the status quo is unacceptable and the panels will work for the creation of a new autonomous political entity that would replace the ARMM.
Election of a new set of officials in the 22-year old ARMM was reset by RA 10153 from August 8, 2011 to synchronize it with the national mid-term elections on May 13, 2013, and to allow for President Aquino to appoint OICs to serve the ARMM until June 30, 2013.
The President named former Anak Mindanaw party-list Rep. Mujiv Hataman as OIC Governor to institute reforms in the ARMM. Hataman assumed the post on December 22 last year.
In a press statement released by the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information on April 27, Hataman said the agreement “would shape up for the peace process the parties’ future decisions that they may formulate to eventually constitute a political settlement that is acceptable to both parties.”
He said the role of the “reformed ARMM” cannot be downplayed in the government’s efforts to come up with a permanent solution to the Moro question.
Weeks before the April 24 GPH-MILF signing, Hataman said the ARMM and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process had come up with “common points of cooperation” in support to the peace process.
The press statement added that Hataman “assured that the ARMM remains an essential part of the solution rather than the problem in addressing the Bangsamoro issues.”
But Hataman’s elder brother, Basilan Rep. Jim Salliman-Hataman, vice chair of the House Committee on Mindanao Affairs, was quoted by the Manila Standard on April 27 as having said the government’s announcement to create a new entity to replace the ARMM is “premature.”
“It is premature at this point in time to focus on renaming the ARMM when the final peace agreement is not yet binding,” he said.
The agreement involves not just renaming the ARMM but replacing it with a new entity.
ARMM Governors Abdusakur Tan of Sulu, Jum Akbar of Basilan, Mamintal Alonto Adiong of Lanao del Sur and Sadikul Sahali of Tawi-tawi have yet to respond to the query sent on April 27 and 30, seeking their comments on the signing of the framework agreement.
Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu finally replied morning of May 1. “Okay lang yan, basta para sa kapayapaan” (that’s okay, as long as it’s for peace), he told MindaNews in a telephone interview.
“Isipin po natin lagi sa buong sinasakupan ng ARMM, basta ito ay makakabuti sa constituents. Alalahanin natin lagi ang constituents ng ARMM ay hindi lang Moro, meron ding Kristiyano at Lumad” (Let us always remember, as long as this would benefit the constituents of the entire ARMM. Let us always remember that the constituents of the ARMM are not just Moro but Christians and Lumads or indigenous peoples), Mangudadatu said.
MindaNews asked Pinol for his comment on the framework agreement but he replied through a text message Monday afternoon: “I have not read them yet. You have the link?”
Pinol’s group was among the first groups government peace panel chair Marvic Leonen met in a dialogue at the Marco Polo Hotel in Davao City in late August 2011, days after the MILF peace panel rejected the GPH peace panel’s proposed peace package: the “3 for one formula” involving massive economic development in a reformed ARMM, political settlement and historical acknowledgment.
Pinol, a three-term governor of North Cotabato, was vice governor when he pushed for the province to go to the Supreme Court and ask for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the August 5, 2008 signing of the already initialed GPH-MILF Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).
Three years later, Pinol commended President Aquino for the August 4, 2011 meeting with MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim in Narita, Japan to fast-track the peace process.
“Christian leaders in Mindanao, who in all modesty look up to me as their champion in defending the Christian population’s position in the negotiations, have frantically texted me asking if President Aquino ‘has betrayed us?’,” he wrote on August 6.
“My response was ‘Relax. Let’s give him an elbow room in handling this problem’,” Pinol said, adding Aquino “is a President whose attitude is that of a Big Brother who would like to bring conflicting parties to an honest tete-a-tete, much like squabbling kids who are brought together and asked: ‘Hey, what’s your problem?’ This was what was lacking in the previous peace negotiations effort.
It was just too formal and bound by diplomatic protocols and formalities that it hardly moved forward,” he said.
Pinol ran for governor in May 2010 under President Aquino’s Liberal Party. He lost to Emmylou Talino-Mendoza.
Pinol ended his piece by saying the Aquino administration must consider two important positions which he claimed was “embraced by the majority” of Mindanawons.
These are: “No Islamic sub-state and no expansion of the autonomous area” and “Socio-economic solutions must be emphasized.”
There is no point expanding a region which is the poorest in the country and where governance is marked by massive corruption and creating a sub-state on the basis of religion could raise another Constitutional question,” Pinol wrote, adding socio-economic solutions “must be emphasized over political arrangements and accommodations.”
“No amount of peace agreements could assure that there will be an end to the conflict in Mindanao if the Muslims continue to wallow in poverty and deprivation, if they are not able to send their children to school and if they are not given the services due them as citizens of this Republic,” he said.
In Zamboanga City, the Regional Peace and Order Council urged the GPH peace panel to conduct consultations with the leaders of the local government unit (LGUs) in the Zamboanga Peninsula before a final deal is forged with the MILF.
“We asked that the peace panel come to us and consult with the governors and mayors of Zamboanga Peninsula to have a true and genuine and transparent peace agreement,” Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat was quoted by sunstar.
