Bangsamoro: Fulfillment or denial anew? (1)

Patricio Diaz

ONE major plank in the platform of presidential candidate Rodrigo R. Duterte was peace with the Moro and the Communist rebels. He planned a two-prong approach – implement all agreements with the Moro rebel groups and continue the negotiation with the NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines), the umbrella of the Communist rebel forces.

These are now the two roads in the Duterte peace roadmap. This he enunciated in his inaugural address: “On the domestic front, my administration is committed to implement all signed peace agreements in step with constitutional and legal reforms.” While his two paragraphs immediately following suggested reference to the Moro rebels alone, viewed from his later statement in his State of the Nation Address, he must also be referring to the Communist insurgents.

Even before he formally assumed office, Duterte and his peace teams held exploratory talks with the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) on the Bangsamoro issues and with the NDFP for the resumption of the stalled negotiations. During a cabinet meeting on July 18, 2016, he approved the roadmap to peace for the implementation of all peace agreements with the Moro rebels.

No official copy was released immediately; none until now; and none has been posted in the websites of the Opapp (Office of the Presidential Assistant on the Peace Processes) or of The Official Gazette under the Office of the President. However, Peace Secretary Jesus Dureza, who prepared the roadmap, has optimistically said much about it in his press interviews and statements published in Mindanews (MN), Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), The Philippine Star (Star), Rappler (R), and other media outlets.

Incidentally, we received from a friend who begged to remain anonymous what appeared to be a guide in a briefing for the government and the Moro rebel peace teams entitled, “The Bangsmoro Peace and Development Roadmap.” It corroborates official statements in the media.  We attach to it the same authenticity as the matrix of MILF demands that we received in 2001 under the same circumstance and subsequently proven authentic. We will refer to the BPDR as the “authentic Duterte roadmap.”

From Secretary Dureza, it is inferred that the Bangsamoro roadmap is not only about peace but also development, for he has repeatedly said that for him signing many peace agreements would mean nothing without the massive development of the Bangsamoro. From the peace secretary’s pronouncements – echoing the President’s Sona (Paragraphs 34, 35) – may be inferred the essential features or elements of this Bangsamoro peace and development roadmap.

Negotiations with the Moro rebels are over. Hence, the peace process will focus on the implementation of the agreements. The government and MILF negotiating panels have been reconstituted into implementing panels. They will meet in the Philippines, no longer in Kuala Lumpur, except when third-party facilitation is necessary..

Dureza (Star, 7/20/16) said that a new enabling law will be drafted to implement the CAB (Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro) and the 1996 Final Peace Agreement of the government and the MNLF under the leadership of Chairman NurMisuari.

Stated in other reports, for more inclusivity pertinent provisions of the Armm law (R.A. No. 9054) and of IPRA (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act) will be included in the enabling law to complement the CAB and the 1996 FPA. The inclusion of the IPRA will address the concerns of the Lumads or IPs.

The convergence of the CAB, FPA, and RA 9054 will implement all agreements with the Moros since 1976. The CAB contains all agreements between the government and MILF from 1997 to 2014. The 1996 FPA is dubbed the final implementation of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and related accords between the government and the MNLF; it was used to amend RA 6734 into R.A. 9054.

RA 9054, the original Organic Act that established the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was drafted in 1988 by the Mindanao Regional Consultative Commission composed of 50 members–25 Muslims, 17 Christians and eight Lumads–created by President Corazon C. Aquino.

The implementation process will follow the legislative and the federalism tracks. As reported in the Opapp website and cited by Mindanews, the enactment of the the new proposed Bangsamoro enabling law “will be done simultaneously with the moves to shift to a federal set-up, the latter expected to come later under the planned timeline.”

Dureza, in his text message to Mindanews, reiterated: “Simultaneous but enabling law obviously ahead. Bangsamoro governance unit can be a test bed for future federal states.” (MN 7/19/16) It seemed to clarify the somewhat confusing “the latter expected”-clause in the Opapp report.

What does the clarification mean? The expanded BTC (Bangsamoro Transition Commission) once reconstituted will start immediately to draft the new enabling law and within six months submit the draft to the Congress. By that time, the amendment of the 1987 Constitution to shift to the federal system could be in progress at the Constitutional Assembly. While awaiting the ConAss draft before constituting itself into a constitutional assembly, the Congress would be tackling the Bangsamoro enabling law.

That the “Bangsamoro governance unit can be a test bed for future federal states” implies the intent to pass the enabling law immediately – as President Duterte has assured the Moros (MN, 7/23/16) – and to establish the Bangsamoro while the Conass is still working on the federal constitution so it can use Bangsamoro as the model of the federal states. The proposed federalization timeline is to finish the constitutional amendments in 2017 and submit it to a plebiscite in the midterm election of 2019.

In a meeting with MILF Central Committee, Dureza assured Chairman Al Haj MuradEbrahim, “We will continue the process. We are not reinventing here. We will build on what has already been gained.” Murad affirmed the MILF commitment to “preserve all the past agreements.” (PDI, 7/21/16) This also means that unless changes are necessary, the same visions, parameters, objectives, mechanisms and modalities already in place will remain as guide and in use.

Convergence and inclusivity are critical concerns. This means that all – Moros (rebel factions and Sultanates), IPs and settlers – will be consulted, their concerns embodied in the enabling law and represented in the Bangsamoro government. The perceived lack of these in Draft BBL is among the reasons for its revision into the substitute bill BLBAR (Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region) and its eventual failure to be passed by the 16th Congress. The burden of convergence and inclusivity is on the BTC.

The implementing panels have agreed to expand the membership of CAB-based BTC to 21 – eleven, including the head, to be appointed by MILF and ten by Government. To make the new BTC truly inclusive, it is expected Government will tap representatives from the Misuari, Sema and Alonto MNLF factions, the Sultanates, other Bangsamoro representatives, the local governments and the IPs. (to be continued)