Shift to federal government amid Marawi crisis: Minda

MINDANAO Developent Authority (Minda) chair secretary Datu Hj. Abul Khayr D. Alonto said the Marawi crisis calls for the need for the government to push through with its plans to shift the country to a federal government.

"The Marawi tragedy should propel us now to look at the merits of federalism as proposed by our Brother President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. The current unitary state system, which is a carryover from Spanish and American colonialism, has utterly failed not only to resolve the myriad problems besetting this country since its birth as a Republic in 1946, but it has absolutely failed to address the root cause of the Bangsamoro Question which invariably fuels the conflict that continues to fester Mindanao and Sulu," Alonto said.

He said shifting to a federal form of government is not just a matter of reform.

"It has become a matter of survival for the Philippine State in light of the global menace of daesh extremism that has, like a metastasizing cancer, now

invaded our country through its backdoor. The Marawi City tragedy ought to jolt us out of our smug complacency and oblivious treatment of the Bangsamoro Question," Alonto said.

He said the Bangsamoro is keen on supporting the President’s determination to federalize the country through constitutional change.

"Towards this end, aware of the two conflicting tracts in the separate peace processes involving the MILF and the MNLF (Misuari) and their concomitant complexities apropos convergence, we are determined to immediately convoke, with the official blessings of the President, the All-Moro Convention to expedite inclusivity or the participation of all sectors of the Bangsamoro and as well as the convergence of the two separate tracts (which means the peace agreements) in the peace processes with the Moro Fronts," Alonto said.

He said the All-Moro Convention will prepare the common Moro platform in the form a proposed consolidated and comprehensive Moro Law based on consensus, inclusivity, and convergence in line with and in preparation for federalism.

"The Convention will submit to the Constitutional Commission that will prepare the draft of the new Constitution of the Federal Republic of the Philippines whether for Congress sitting as a Constituent Assembly or for a Constitutional Convention," Alonto said.

Meanwhile, he also noted the gravity of the impact of the Marawi crisis.

"While government is now on the upper hand and the ranks of the daesh extremists are dwindling in the face of relentless military operations both on the ground and air, the consequent human cost to civilian lives and property, not mention casualties among soldiers and extremist insurgents, is appalling," he said.

He said Marawi City has been "emptied of its more than 200 thousand plus residents, most of whom are now suffering in evacuation centers and private homes of relatives in nearby towns and cities like Iligan and Cagayan de Oro and even as far as Cebu and Metro Manila."

"Today, as the violence in Marawi starts to abate as daesh Isis faces inevitable defeat in the hands of our government armed forces, the preparation for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the devastated city and its people begins and dominates official conversation," Alonto said.