Lakas ng Loob makipag-isa

(Sunday, 04 April 2010; Updated… thoughts on BARMM, 07 July 2019 ) ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews) -- It is not only the issue of constitutionality that we have to face in our search for the solution to the Bangsamoro problem, or the government problem.

We must also confront the emotions that come with the basic issues. Maybe we should even regard these emotions as one of the basic issues.

The truth of the matter is that there seems to be a predominance of negative thoughts and feelings among Pinoy settlers, Bangsamoro and Lumad; they are not exactly kind. And they have also reached the level of official policies.

How, for instance can we explain, the strong resistance to the phrase “Muslim Mindanao” in the Constitution from among Christian settlers and Lumad when it was under deliberation in the Regional Consultative Commission (RCC) and in Congress?

Yes, they themselves took part in the overwhelming approval of this 1987 Constitution and, consequently, that phrase, too.

On the opposite end, how do we understand the overwhelmingly favorable response to it from among Muslims?

This was duly documented in the public consultations conducted by the RCC. Their views were opposed to each other.

The predominantly Christian provinces of eight out of 13 provinces listed in the Tripoli Agreement vehemently expressed their desire not to be included in the territory of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the reasons given revealed negative thoughts and feelings about Muslims rather than the objective merits of the draft organic act produced by the RCC and the actual Organic Act enacted by Congress.

The same manifestations were repeated in 1996 when the famous or infamous (depending on where one stood) Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD) surfaced in the peace talks between Government and the MNLF.

Yet it turned out that most of the protesting public, including very educated ones, had not even read the document.

Substantially, the same demonstration of emotions were reportedly triggered by GRP-MILF MOA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain).

Voicing popular negative settler sentiments, indignant politicians filed for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in the Supreme Court to prevent the signing of the agreement in Malaysia; the Supreme Court not only aborted the signing on August 5, 2008, it also ruled that the MOA-AD was unconstitutional.

Angry rallies denouncing the MOA-AD were held in Zamboanga City, Iligan City and Kidapawan City, even before the document itself was made known to the public, indicating unmistakably that the anger was not exactly because the protesters, or their leaders, knew what the MOA-AD was all about.

Which leads one to ask, was MOA-AD the problem? Or the perceived MOA-AD?

Or that the angry perceivers had something within themselves that had been merely pricked to the surface by the document. I had the privilege to be “in” many of the above events and I can attest that the feelings expressed were not necessarily objective reactions based on a thorough reading of the documents they were opposing.

At one point, I asked the owners of some voices in one audience: If the MOA-AD had come from a Bisayan or Christian group, would you have the same reaction?

The answer was a quick NO! TO BE CONTINUED

-oOo

Note that I wrote this in 2010.

Now (2019) we have the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), after Congress approval, and signing by the President of the Republic and the ratification through a plebiscite. This document is historic, another form of sandugo.

Pero tuloy-tuloy pa rin ang pag-aayos ng relationship, para magkaroon ng fresh relationships sa bagong generation.

Kung magkaroon ng pederalismo, bahagi pa rin ng pagkakaroon ng bagong constitution at republika.

MABUHAY TAYONG LAHAT!