Gov’t-MILF peace pact makes history

By Christian V. Esguerra, Jerome Aning

MANILA, Philippines—His country is going through a harrowing crisis, but Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is flying to Manila Thursday to witness the historic signing of the final peace agreement between the government and the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Malacañang on Wednesday confirmed that Najib will attend the signing ceremonies for the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) to be held on the grounds in front of the Kalayaan Hall at 4 p.m. Thursday, citing information from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

“We know that Malaysia is undergoing a crisis owing to the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane, [but] Malaysia is fully aware of its international commitments, and we thank them that despite the difficulty that they’re encountering, they have accepted our invitation to grace the signing of the agreement, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda told a Palace press briefing on Wednesday.

Biggest gathering

According to Lacierda, Thursday’s event will be the biggest gathering so far for the three-year-old Aquino administration.

“We decided to move it to the Kalayaan grounds where we believe we can hold, in our estimate, over 1,500 [guests],” he said.

The MILF contingent alone is expected to number almost 500, he said. Officials at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Wednesday said about 500 Muslim Filipinos arrived at the airport in two batches on Wednesday. They were said to be guests of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos. The officials said they were told that some were members of the MILF and representatives of the Muslim royal families in Mindanao.

The rest on the guest list include members of the diplomatic corps, congressional leaders, the Mindanao bloc in the House of Representatives, and members of the international contact group and the international monitoring team for the peace talks.

Foreign Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, the DFA spokesman, said Najib’s working visit will push through even as Malaysia is coordinating the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing on March 8.

As of Wednesday, a multinational search effort had yet to recover what is believed to be debris from the ill-fated jet. Najib earlier announced that the plane, which carried 239 people, had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

The DFA did not release Najib’s flight and arrival details.

Working visit

Malaysia served as the facilitator of the negotiations with the MILF since 2001, hosting negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, the DFA said in a statement. It also heads the international monitoring team observing the ceasefire between the government and the MILF rebels.

Before witnessing the signing, Najib will sit down with President Aquino “to briefly discuss matters of mutual concern between the Philippines and Malaysia,” the DFA said.

Najib last visited Manila in October 2012, to witness the signing of the framework agreement, a crucial initial document in the peace negotiations.

The Malaysian prime minister and Aquino last met during the state visit that the President made to Malaysia on Feb. 27 and 28.

No perceived threats

Lacierda said the signing ceremony would be beamed live from Malacañang. He said a portion of the Kalayaan Hall would serve as a prayer room for the Muslim guests.

He said the Palace was aware of no specific threats intended to disrupt the signing ceremonies.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has placed the entire 148,000 force natiowide on heightened alert for the event.

Senior Supt. Wilben Mayor, spokesman for PNP Director General Alan Purisima, said the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) had been on full alert, the equivalent of red alert in the military, since Tuesday night.

“The NCRPO is also directed to provide mobile cars to foreign ministers who will attend the event and provide civil disturbance management personnel (to guard against) possible mass action and to initiate countermeasures,” he said.

Who will sign

The five-page comprehensive agreement will be signed by members of both negotiating panels. Aside from Aquino and Najib, also witnessing the signing will be Teresita Quintos-Deles, the presidential adviser on the peace process, and MILF chair Murad Ebrahim.

Signing for the government will be chair Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, panel members Senen Bacani, Yasmin Busran-Lao and Mehol Sadain, and consultants Zenonida Brosas and Jose Luis Martin Gascon.

The signatories for the MILF will be Mohagher Iqbal, Michael Mastura, Maulana Alonto, Abhoud Syed Lingga, Abdulla Camlian and Antonio Kinoc.

Abdul Ghafar Mohamed, the Malaysian facilitator, will also sign as witness, according to Ferrer.

Dignitaries

Other Malaysian officials invited to witness the signing include Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, the defense department secretary general and the chief of the Malaysian armed forces, all of whom were to arrive in separate flights Wednesday.

Visiting United Nations Development Program (UNDP) administrator Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, will also witness the signing.

The dignitaries attending Thursday’s signing also include Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Naci Koru of Turkey, State Minister Maria Bohmer of Germany, Director Salem Ali Othman of Libya, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.

Drafting the basic law

The comprehensive agreement will encompass all the negotiated and signed agreements, including the framework agreement signed in 2012 and the four annexes and addenda that came after.

The agreement will be the basis for the drafting of the basic law or constitution of the Bangsamoro region that will be created for the Muslim minority in Mindanao. The basic law, which is now being drafted by a transition commission, will be submitted for approval by Congress, after which it will have to be voted on in a plebiscite in the regions to be covered by the Bangsamoro autonomous territory to be created by the agreement.

Increase ARMM budget

Sen. Ralph Recto on Wednesday called on Malacañang to increase the preliminary P20.4-billion budget for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 2015, its final year before it is replaced by Bangsamoro.

In a statement, Recto said that a higher ARMM budget would benefit the new regional government that will take over once it is in place; its budget may not be less than the last appropriation received by the ARMM.

Recto said that even if the ARMM’s 2015 indicative budget would be P840 million bigger than this year’s, “in real terms it is still negative growth.”

“This is because if you add the population growth rate and the inflation rate, the sum is bigger than the 4.2-percent hike in the budget,” he said.

He said the national government has the obligation to give more funds to a region that, though poor, is rich in potential.

“If next year is the ARMM government’s last hurrah, then the best goodbye gift we can give it is a bigger budget, which in turn benefits the successor government because it will be using a higher base in asking for subsequent funds,” Recto said.

That budgetary allocation remains government’s most effective equity in the peace project, he said.

“Peace has a price but from a funding point of view an imperfect peace is still less costly than a just war,” he said.


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Power-sharing central to Moro self-rule

By Ryan D. Rosauro

With the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro Thursday, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is abandoning its armed struggle for an independent Muslim state in Mindanao.

For the rest of the country and perhaps the world, this is the heart of the peace process with the Moro rebels.

In exchange, the government is committing to redo a 37-year autonomy experiment whose current version, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), has failed to live up to the Moro people’s aspiration for freedom from an overly centralized government.

The establishment of the Bangsamoro, which has an asymmetrical relationship with the central government, is deemed the remedy for a defective autonomy.

For the MILF and its supporters, this is the crowning glory of their four-decade struggle.

MILF chief Murad Ebrahim has said that even ordinary Moros consider the present instrumentalities of the Philippine state—its agencies and local governments—that they deal with every day as a “government of the aliens.”

17 years of negotiating

After four decades of war over the question of freedom, peace in Mindanao is bought with the grant of greater leeway for the Moro people to decide for themselves.

The historic moment in Malacañang comes after more than 17 years of political negotiations, the last 13 years of which involved neighboring Malaysia as a third-party facilitator.

This breakthrough also comes more than 17 years after the government signed a peace pact with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the original group from which the MILF broke away in 1984.

The government is confident that the Bangsamoro accord embodies most of the measures that adequately deal with Moro political demands. Hence, its negotiations with the MILF will be the last of such processes.

First, it talked peace with the rebels more than 39 years ago, through the undivided MNLF. The meeting took place on Jan. 18, 1975, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, under the auspices of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, now the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), according to the book “Bangsamoro: A Nation Under Endless Tyranny.”

Embrace democratic ways

As a sign of embracing democratic means to pursue its political goals, the MILF has agreed to decommission its armed wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF). This will be done in phases, principally following the achievement of milestones defined in a plan for the establishment of a new autonomous region by mid-2016.

Some other conditions for the decommissioning of MILF forces are the redeployment of government security forces within Bangsamoro, establishment of the Bangsamoro police force, disbandment of private armed groups, socioeconomic development aid for former combatants, and the institution of transitional justice and reconciliation measures in a bid to straighten unjust historical narratives, correct historical injustices, and repair relations among conflict-affected communities and peoples.

“We believe that the formula we have agreed with government is the best formula that can be had. We cannot build our institutions in the context of continuing war,” said MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, a veteran of the four-decade Moro rebellion.

Iqbal said that as previously announced, the MILF would remain a social movement while a political party will be formed as vehicle for its members’ participation in the electoral arena soon.

Redesign autonomy

In the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the preliminary accord signed on Oct. 15, 2012, the government and the MILF aimed to establish a new autonomous region encompassing predominantly Moro-populated areas in Mindanao.

The two sides concluded that the ARMM lacks the institutional attributes to effectively respond to the Moro people’s longing for self-rule. It needs to be replaced with another autonomous body imbued with far greater political and economic powers.

The ARMM continues to be dependent on economic and financial doles from the central government. Its political dynamics is largely dictated by the tenant of Malacañang; since 1989, those who have become regional governors have been anointed by the President.

The Bangsamoro will have a ministerial form of government. This feature, according to government chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, makes for its asymmetric relations with the central government, which follows the presidential setup in political administration.

Bangsamoro constituents will elect the members of the regional legislative assembly, envisioned to compose at least 50 representatives coming from “district, party-list, reserved seats and sectoral constituencies.”

The assembly is to be “representative of the Bangsamoro’s constituent political units, as well as non-Moro indigenous communities, women, settler communities, and other sectors.”

A chief minister will run the Bangsamoro Cabinet, to be elected by assembly members from among themselves. The chief minister will then appoint a deputy and other ministers.

The chief minister will also preside over a council of leaders composed of provincial governors, city mayors, and “a representative each of the non-Moro indigenous communities, women, settler communities and other sectors.”

Power-sharing

Central to the autonomy redesign is power-sharing. Currently, the ARMM charter lists 14 areas that are outside the powers of the regional legislature.

In the power-sharing aspect of the comprehensive peace accord, the parties came up with a list of 81 powers categorized into reserved for the central government, exclusive to the Bangsamoro and concurrent or shared by the two sides.

Of the 81 powers, 58 are devolved to the Bangsamoro, nine are reserved to the central government, and 14 are shared.

In addition, the future Bangsamoro government was given a greater share in revenues collected in the region, a greater share in income from natural wealth, and was granted authority to collect some types of taxes, all in the spirit of enhancing its fiscal capacity.

According to government panel member Senen Bacani, tax collection in the ARMM stood at P1.5 billion annually, while the regional government and its constituent local governments require P30 billion annually to operate.


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