Patricio Diaz
Acceptance of the status quo: Unlike the CAB, the FPA, judging from its provisions, was not meant to abolish the existing Armm established in 1989 under R.A. No. 6734 and replace it with a more meaningful and genuine autonomy under a new enabling law or Organic Act. It was only meant to enhance the Armm by amending or repealing R.A. No. 6734. This is clearly seen in Parts I and II of the FPA.
In amending or repealing R.A. No. 6734, given to the Congress was this option, “The bill shall include the pertinent provisions of the final Peace Agreement and the expansion of the present Armm area of autonomy [I.2(a)]” ; and to GRP the obligation to recommend, “Accordingly, these provisions shall be recommended by the GRP to Congress for incorporation in the amendatory or repealing law [III (Phase 2)]”.
In the CAB, it is mandatory for BBL to be CAB-compliant and for the Armm to be abolished outright upon the ratification of the BBL to be replaced by the Bangsamoro. This is Point 2 in the “Decision Points on Principles”, Part I, Paragraph 1 of the FAB, and the subject of Draft BBL adopted as HB No. 4994 and SB No. 2408.
In accepting the status quo, MNLF settled for enhanced Armm as the political settlement of the Moro Problem. The same was offered to MILF – each time firmly rejected – in June 2000, June 2001, February 2003 and January 2010 under President Arroyo; under President Aquino, this was offered in August 2011 as the GPH counter-proposal, the “3 in 1 Approach”.
A rehash: Coupled with the lack of mandatory provisions, the FPA is a rehash of RA 6734 – the FPA adopting much of the RA. In Chapter VII of our book, What Ails Muslim Autonomy?, (1998), we compared closely how the FPA and the RA fleshed out the substantive paragraphs of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and found their provisions to be respectively “identical, basically similar, complementary or supplementary”.
The FPA has no detailed agreements of the demands agreed in principle in the 1976 Tripoli Agreement “to be discussed later”; it is really a proposed enabling law to amend an existing organic act that it has rehashed. The CAB is a compendium of detailed agreements. The FPA is its own enabling law, unlike the CAB. After the Congress had amended RA 6734, the FPA became RA 9054. The counterpart of the FPA is Draft BBL, not the CAB. This can complicate convergence to craft BEL.
With questionable circumstances in the background, the Arroyo government agreed with the OIC in 2006 to review the full implementation of the FPA as petitioned by MNLF. The OIC-GRP-MNLF Tripartite Review with OIC presiding – not just facilitating –began in 2007. The fifth and final Tripartite Meeting was in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Jan. 25-26, 2916 (Opapp website, Jan. 27, 2016).
MNLF complained that R.A. No. 9054 was passed without its participation and that the Congress had not fully implemented the FPA. It asked the OIC – not the Congress –to have the implementation reviewed and to amend R.A. No. 9054 accordingly. From the official reports, it is evident that “full implementation” referred to how the FPA – by phraseology -- was transformed into R.A. 9054, not to how the RA, as FPA in substance, was implemented.
Within 22 months after the Third Tripartite Meeting (March 11-13, 2009) 36 issues or concerns were identified. At the Fourth Tripartite Meeting (February 22, 2011), OPAPP Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles remarked that 15 issues had been resolved, referred to as “consensus points”. Nine issues must have been added later since Deles revealed on Sept. 21, 2013 during a “Q and A” session on the status of the Review that 42 consensus points had been achieved with three more concerns to resolve.
By the Fifth and Final Tripartite Meeting the same status stood. A bill to amend R.A. No. 9054 with the 42 consensus points to “fully” implement the FPA was deferred. Misuari objected to its submission to the Congress until the three remaining issues were resolved to his satisfaction – rendering the eight-year Review inutile. Deles explained the three issues were not within the purview of the review either for not being in the FPA or for having been already complied with.
What now is the status of the FPA? How does this affect the status of R.A. No. 9054? What are their implications to their proposed convergence –especially the FPA -- to BBL? (to be continued)
