The Mindanao saga continues

27 Responses to “The Mindanao saga continues”

1. Ding G. Gagelonia on August 5th, 2008 3:14 pm

   I am wont to debate with Prof. Margallo on this issue except that at the end of his post he asserts that “he Court owes the President great deference in the exercise of her power to continue waging war or negotiating for peace where undercutting the presidential initiative may also result in national embarrassment before the international community. Interestingly, now that it’s apposite for the Court to protect executive privilege or the independence of the executive (at least at this stage of the peace negotiation), it has unfortunately chosen - and quite precipitously - to be on the other side (i.e., the wrong side) of the fence. When will the SC ever get it right?”

   I pray that here Sir Abe actually means deference to the prerogatives of the Office of the President and not of the person, given the temper of the overwhelming majority of our countrymen and the track record of this president in obfuscating if not outright lying on issues, plus the manner in which our institutions have been emasculated and politicized/militarized in recent years.

   At the end of the day this is about honesty, integrity and honesty for us to trust that the Malacanang occupant will do right by the people who last I heard are sovereign.

2. Jeg on August 5th, 2008 5:19 pm

   Tagalogs, Pampangos, Ilocanos, Cebuanos, etc. are non-indigenous to Mindanao. Mindanao is the context. Of course Tagalogs are indigenous to the Tagalog region, Kampangans to Pampanga, etc.

   DJB also mentions in MLQ3’s site that no one is seriously considering independence for the southern tribes. I dont know how true that is but if it is, I suppose it’s because you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube after youve squeezed it out. You can’t ‘unsettle’ the non-indigenous settlers.

   But if the Mindanaoans get their act together — all of them: Christians, Muslims, natives — an independent Mindanao has the potential of overtaking the north economically. How cool is that? We all know that the central government has never done right by them for generations.

3. Bencard on August 5th, 2008 8:53 pm

   that’s a good point, jeg. these christians, muslims and natives should first learn the virtue of tolerance and develop a live-and-let-live attitude among themselves. the u.s. is a conglomeration of practically all races and ethnicities of the world. yet, they live in relative peace and prosperity under a rule of law.

4. cocoy on August 5th, 2008 9:32 pm

   “The Court owes the President great deference in the exercise of her power to continue waging war or negotiating for peace where undercutting the presidential initiative may also result in national embarrassment before the international community.”

   i respectfully disagree that we should be worried about what other nations might think of. in my humble opinion the overriding concern must be what do Filipinos think— most especially our brothers and sisters in Mindanao, from all faiths. do the people of mindanao want autonomy/independence?

   when asked in a plebiscite to taken, they’ve said no. repeatedly.

   if armed groups can’t respect that decision because it isn’t the answer they’ve been looking for, why can’t we protect our brothers and sisters who said “no”?

   What difference does it make for a Muslim to find a living in Greenhills, trading with anybody, and the one in Mindanao? I think the status quo– this democracy, such as it is, can do more for the people of Mindanao than any BJE if we throw out the idea that these extremists have a justifiable grievance.

   Peace in Mindanao must be one that all parties— Christian and all those Muslim fractions can hold their heads up and say, “this is good for us all”. i find this whole deal with MILF isn’t an answer to Peace in Mindanao. i join in the fear of a lot of people this MOA may lead to the contrary.

5. Abe N. Margallo on August 5th, 2008 10:59 pm

   Ding and Cocoy,

   Sir Ding, you are actually right and I stand corrected.

   But let me get this straight. Since the “Hello, Garci” controversy where GMA has made a public confession of “lapse in judgment,” I have been among those who have earnestly questioned the legitimacy of her presidency. However, unless she is actually replaced, constitutionally or extra-constitutionally, I will continue to call her “my president” especially before the international community. As a Filipino citizen, I will only diminish myself if I do otherwise. (Indeed, I have harbored similar sentiments although I’ve likewise loathed the profligacy of Imelda Marcos; hence, I’ve been gravely insulted when American prosecutors have tried to disrespect “my former First Lady” in an effort to railroad her before a US court).

   I have not taught Constitutional Law in more than a quarter of a century (I am just a blogger now like any one else in FV) but the constitutional principle I have mentioned in the main entry is so fundamental in our system of government that I find it very strange for any member of the SC to miss it.

   For example, The Daily tribune poses this: “The military has proven, in 2000, that it could easily overrun the government-owned camps which the MILF claimed for itself even under the presidency of Fidel Ramos, and sent the MILF packing. Yet the Arroyo military today refuses to even fight the MILF, which has gone to the extent of killing and beheading Marines . . ..” Should the SC in that situation issue a preliminary mandatory injunction commanding the “Arroyo military” to recapture the government camp on a taxpayer suit? If we grant that the SC can prevent a peace negotiation via a TRO to forestall a perceived dismemberment of the national territory, doesn’t it follow it could also enjoin the waging of war to recover a lost ground?

   Jeg, Cocoy and Bencard,

   I fully appreciate your points. Here’s what I’ve written before (in re the GRP’s peace negotiation with MNLF and the Tripoli Agreement [TA] and Final Peace Agreement [FPA]):

   Like the consequence of the unjust doctrine of discovery and conquest that was prosecuted in the Archipelago in 1521, the result of the internal conquest of Mindanao, both by the Christians and the Muslims, are now “operative facts” that cannot simply be ignored. The Christian settlements of Mindanao and the Bangsamoro are as real as the ancestral rights of the Lumads and the Philippine state’s claim to its territorial integrity as defined by it.

   I liken these operative facts to the situation of a maiden taken by a man against her will, and who bore him a child out of that forced relationship but in the course of time, she bore him more offspring out of the same relationship she has somehow come to accept and possibly learned to like in many more ways than one. The relationship (or coexistence, if you will) created not only between the maiden and the man but also between the maiden, the man and their children, and other kindred relationship, cannot simply be ignored now.

   Recognizing these operative facts is, I believe, at the core of the FPA, the full enforcement of which is still awaiting the sincerities of all the contending parties. Whether the present provisions of the FPA are sufficient to be so molded in response to the societal needs in the region is the challenge of the political will. And if the political will is present, it should be able to read “some invisible radiation from the general terms” to borrow the language of Justice Holmes.

   My solution is to create a sovereign within a sovereign which is possible in a federalism setting where “social engineering” is more likely to take hold. This can either happen now or wait. In the meanwhile, keeping the peace process going by implementing the TA and the FPA appears to be the most logical alternative to spur the momentum of peace, security and progress.

   Finally, let me state that the unitary system has failed our nation for more than a century already. Isn’t it time to experiment on something new? Those who are allergic to a GMA holdover beyond 2010, would you change your mind (that is, go for federalism) if in a charter change initiative, the incumbent president is specifically constitutionally barred from running for president or prime minister under the new charter?

6. DJB Rizalist on August 5th, 2008 11:10 pm

   Abe,

   Perhaps you don’t see the absurdity I refer to because you think that “indigenous” is just some kind of noble label.

   But when the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997 passed by a 7-7 tie in the Supreme Court, then Justice Reynato Puno wrote succinctly:

   “Ancestral domains and ancestral lands are the private property of indigenous peoples and do not constitute part of the land of the public domain.”

   In a dissenting opinion, then Justice Art Panganiban estimated that the ancestral lands and domains that are “private property” of indigenous peoples amounted to about one third of Philippine territory, and owned only 11 million IPs, none of them Christianized.

   So let’s not sleep walk through the illusion that “indigenous people” is mere verbiage. It has definite material and political implications for it actually makes “non-indigenous people” second class citizens.

   It also represents a Giant Guilt Trip laid upon said “non-indigenous peoples” for succumbing to colonial rule, without being given benefit for being the ones who also overthrew such rule and gained independence for the Philippines in the end.

   I think your opinion and characterization of Christianized Filipinos demeans their profound and heroic struggles through centuries of colonial rule by claiming that those who ran away into the forests and mountains now deserve a third of the territory as their “private property” just by doing so. And not as individuals, but by the ascription of academics and pundits for whole groups of them.

   Why should Visayans be punished by such an absurdity as IPRA when their conversion to Catholicism had everything to do with escaping being forced into the harems of Raja Sirongan and Raja Mura and their children being sold into slavery in Borneo? Now you want to reward those marauders and human traffickers with a “homeland” from which to launch more attacks on the Republic?

   Lumads, bangsamoros and other indigenous peoples are far, far better off with “us” than with “them” –meaning the MILF and your beloved NPAs. I don’t think we should look for solutions to Mindanao any farther than the democracy we already have. I certainly don’t think that a restoration of the old slave-raiding slave-trading sultanates (the original Kidnap for Ransom Gang that ruled Mindanao) is any kind of solution. And the Bangsamoro know that most of all, because their ancestral memories of those tarsila-bearing nobles is none too pleasant, I wager.

   I’m all for self-determination, so please read the lips of even the majority of moros in the last two (three?) plebiscites that’ve already been held: they don’t want Bangsamorostan either.

7. DJB Rizalist on August 5th, 2008 11:41 pm

   Abe,
   The Supreme Court is not “preventing” a peace negotiation. It is preventing a grave injustice being done against the people and their Constitution. You’ve already fallen for GMA’s opening gambit, which is to force a choice between war and chacha. But I see through it already as many others have. The real choice is still between democracy and dismemberment, between self-determination and political/historical correctness. All Filipinos have been oppressed, robbed of their lands, colonialised, what have you, and more or less in equal measure. Thus it ought to be with equal measure that we altogether try to make something of this patch of earth, to play the hand we’ve been dealt by Fortune or Fate. The Federal State you picture is impossible, for you have to imagine not one or two BJEs but 13 or fourteen of them. It would give Balkanization a whole ‘nuther meaning.

   In some ways the entire “separate homeland” idea reminds me of a related concept: apartheid. It only abets the latent tendencies of the Moro as Muslim towards exceptionalism and hatred for the “kufar”, the other.

   I would say, our polity has just reached the point that the United States reached in 1861, and in about the same amount of time as has expired since their founding. Why WAS Southern secession considered immoral and unconstitutional by Abe Lincoln? Why, because it was unjust to the Negro for the Union to abandon them to the slave owning Confederacy.

   I think it is equally immoral and unconstitutional–un-Christian even– for us non-indigenous second class citizens to abandon the Bangsamoro to a restored version of the Sulu or Maguindanao Sultanates, which were brutal slave-owning societies based on human trafficking. There isn’t anything noble or trustworthy about the MILF. We owe it to “our Muslim brothers and sisters” to keep them out of the clutches of beheaders, theocrats and warlords posing as nationalists.

   Even the lumads agree with me, as their State of the IPs Address emphasized their disdain for the BJE of GMA, since their ancestral memories about the Moro sultanates have got to be even worse than those of the ulipuns and endatuans that suffered under the old royal houses.

   As for our unitary system, it hasn’t been that long since 1946 or even 1898. IN fact, I claim that if there were NO insurgencies, we would be at par with Japan by now, or even further along the path of evolution.

   It is the insurgencies themselves that have kept Mindanao poor. Without them, we would have been the equivalent of a hundred Hawaiis or several thousand Finlands. Maybe it is them–your MILFs, NPAs and ASGs–that ought to give peace and democracy a chance.

8. J on August 6th, 2008 12:23 am

   I agree with DJB.

9. Abe N. Margallo on August 6th, 2008 1:12 am

   Dean,

   The following rehash of yet another older post hopefully will explain better my position.

   In fairness to the indigenous people of Mindanao, we need to look at the concept of sovereignty from their standpoint.

   I have assumed the validity of the doctrine of discovery and conquest, from which were derived the doctrine of state and sovereignty, the latter being considered an essential component of the former (along with territory, the people occupying the territory, and government).

   I remember spending my boyhood and young adult life in a town where the aboriginal Aetas (or Agtas) have lived “since time immemorial” by the mountain a couple of hundred yards from our house. Mt. Iriga was my playground. I freely appropriated the fruits of every fruit-bearing tree in that mountain and hunted the wild birds and animals that abounded in it. The fruits and the wild animals were a fair game for me as well as the Aetas. Like Magellan, I planted a flag (instead of a cross) on top of Iliyan, the baby mountain by Mt. Iriga’s bossom). I did not however claim it for myself or for anybody because I have always accepted the Aetas’ lordship over it and its resources.

   One of my youthful impressions of the Aetas was they seemed to have limited concept of either landlordism or the Torrens Title system, since they view the earth as a common source of life, not to be owned individually, or disturbed (specially by someone who appeared like a usurper to them) but for common possession for life-sustaining activities such as gathering and hunting.

   During school break (from the pile of Constitutional Law cases, or the dreaded classes of Justice Fernando or Chief Justice Concepcion) and whenever I visited my town and watched my aboriginal playmates, often I asked myself: What right does anyone or I have to impose the Western concept of sovereignty upon them? Why should they ever be made to accept a mode of thinking, creed or dogma that has been used to subvert their “non-state” communities? These questions remain valid then as today.

   Now you say that “The Federal State you picture is impossible, for you have to imagine not one or two BJEs but 13 or fourteen of them. It would give Balkanization a whole ‘nuther’ meaning.”

   You are right I see 13 or fourteen, but I do not see Balkanization.

   Given full sway, I see the federalism as a win-win alternative. It will allow the national government to retain its sovereign power and substantially its present political structure, even as the component individual state is made to regain its own sovereignty within its own sphere. As such, the states can create their own sources of revenues and finances, appropriate those monies pursuant to their own individual state plans, reinvent their vision and goals of economic development in a manner consistent with the needs of the local residents and of every particles of sovereignty therein, establish their own school systems according to the exigencies and aspirations of the local constituencies, etc., and as “laboratories of democracy,” allow their people to self-define their self-determination taking into consideration the diversities, cultural, social, religious or otherwise, which obtain in their respective communities. And if the federal system is allowed to operate on a nationwide basis, the charge that one region or another is being granted a “privileged status” could thus be avoided.

   If under the federal system the Bangsamoro state still lags behind the other states, it will have no one to blame but itself. This however supports the argument that efficiency is promoted when the individual states start to compete against each other for investors to settle in their localities. Under this setup, dreaming of a “hundred Hawaiis or several thousand Finlands” may not be far behind.

10. Bencard on August 6th, 2008 1:40 am

    i have to agree with abe on this one. federalism is not a novel, untested system of organized government. of course, the u.s. paradigm is there for all the world to see - a beacon that proclaims the concept “e pluribus unum” (one out of many) that celebrates man’s ability to co-exist in harmony out of diversity.

    for all practical purposes, the u.s.model need not be adhered to in minutest details (there are other present models to look into). the cultural uniqueness and the level of political sophistication of the filipinos must be taken into account and provided for. if the system would not work in the philippines, it is not because the idea is flawed - rather it is the people’s lack of ability to make it work.

11. DJB Rizalist on August 6th, 2008 8:40 am

    Bencard, Abe,
    It is non-sequitur to point out that the US has a federal system, because there simply is no basis for it here in the desires and aspirations of the people outside the Central Committee of the MILF.

    I don’t think federalism makes any sense at all for the rest of the Philippines, and even for Mindanao it seems to be an idea being bruited about just for the sake of the insurgents. There is no popular clamor for it.

    Moreover, the Philippine Constitution is very clear: autonomy. That is a far cry from Bangsamorostan as implemented by the MOA. Federalism is merely the newest ploy of the administration to try and amend the Charter. It has nothing to do with Bangsamorostan except as a rhetorical point. Read the MOA: No US State has anywhere near the kind of powers this thing grants the Neo-sultanate. So let’s be very clear about it and not fall into the mental trap of confounding federalism (whether GMA or USA) with Bangsamorostan.

    The simple democratic principle at stake here is SELF-DETERMINATION and I claim that in three previous plebiscites, the Bangsamoro have already declined to be under the heel of their Old Masters. Where is the proof that the Bangsamoro are united behind anything the MILF wants? The MILF cannot even control its own commanders from going rogue, how can they claim the allegiance of 3 million Muslims?

    After the ARMM elections, reality will sink in that the fight resumes in Congress and that Chacha was always the “side benefit” the palace desires.

    In the meantime, let’s see if the MILF tips its hand and shows its true insurgent colors. They are already talking as if Bangsamorostan were a reality. If they not only talk about, but move into that sand castle in the sky, there could be war. But so what?

    God Save The Constitution!

12. Ding G. Gagelonia on August 6th, 2008 8:49 am

    I just feel so damn lucky, feeling like a fan, as I read through you exchanges, gentlemen, being a non-lawyer.

    But being a Filipino, nothing more, I simply know a grave situation faces our Republic at the moment and if the government of the day proceeds with its ill-thought and reckless sell-out of Mindanao, there will be hell to pay. Does anyone really believe GMA herself has thought this through or has the capacity to do so?

13. DJB Rizalist on August 6th, 2008 8:55 am

    Jeg,
    Have you ever read Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”?

    I mention it only because those who claim “historical injustice” for “indigenous peoples” claim that the “central government” or “Imperial Manila” owes them a pound of flesh.

    Even if we were to agree that this is true, there is no way to pay the debt without shedding blood as well, not only of “Christian settlers” but lumad and bangsamoro blood too.

    It’s the equivalent of demanding that California be vacated so the Mexicans and the Indians might re-occupy it.

    After a “Final Peace Agreement” was signed in 1996, I claim that the MILF insurgency was immoral and unjustified. They should lay down their arms and take up the ARMM more seriously and make that idea work first.

    What is it really about a neo-sultanate that would improve substantially upon the ARMM and not a create a new malignancy in the body politic?

    All this fiddling around with the Constitution is a cop-out that seeks to blame the “system” for the failures of politicians and warlords. It’s a game lawyers and academicians play all the time, but read the lips of the people: they don’t want Bangsamorostan!

14. Jeg on August 6th, 2008 10:51 am

    Even if we were to agree that this is true, there is no way to pay the debt without shedding blood as well, not only of “Christian settlers” but lumad and bangsamoro blood too.

    Yes, that’s what I meant about the toothpaste being out of the tube. But Im not a big fan of government — any government — and so I favor Abe’s federalization, but not according to the US model where the federal government has effective control over the states. Autonomy and a secular government for Mindanao is a must though. Most taxes stay in Mindanao for Mindanao, the AFP withdraws and becomes primarily engaged in protecting the coasts. This may lead to outright secession sometime in the future if the people ratify it, but I for one wouldnt be too heart-broken. The north can always find ways to convince the south of the advantages of continuing to be part of the Philippines. The all-important thing for me are the human lives lost. If it comes to a choice between losing a part of the Philippines and saving thousands of lives, I’d rather lose part of the Philippines. But as it turns out, we can lose part of the Philippines AND lose thousands of lives, Muslim, Christian, and lumads.

    Havent read Merchant, DJB. But I did see the Al Pacino movie. (Shakespeare was meant to be performed rather than read. )

15. DJB Rizalist on August 6th, 2008 11:22 am

    Jeg,
    Let me approach this point another way.

    Do you think it was legal, Constitutional, moral or “right” for the Southern Confederacy to secede from the Union “if the people ratified it?”

    Was Abe Lincoln wrong when he called for and got the US Congress to declare a state of civil war on the Southern Confederacy?

    Is secession a “right” that can be gained by plebiscite under the Constitution (either US or ours?)

16. cvj on August 6th, 2008 11:46 am

    DJB (at 11:22 am)…

    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. - from the US Declaration of Independence

    Does that answer your question?

17. Jeg on August 6th, 2008 11:46 am

    Do you think it was legal, Constitutional, moral or “right” for the Southern Confederacy to secede from the Union “if the people ratified it?”

    Legal and constitutional, no idea. Not familiar with law. Im coming from principles here, the one we share: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Moral? Tough call. I believe slavery is immoral. But the confederacy wasnt seceding because it wanted to keep its slaves. It was seceding because they wanted to be free to live as they saw fit. So from the perspective of freedom, yes it was right. The rights of the slaves, they will have to address, and we of course will never know if eventually they wouldve come around. (There were Negroes who fought for the Confederates, btw.)

    Was Abe Lincoln wrong when he called for and got the US Congress to declare a state of civil war on the Southern Confederacy?

    Yes. Life first, then liberty. One must not force another to be part of something he no longer wants to be a part of. War is effectively a call to deprive fellow humans of life. The south had no choice but to defend themselves.

    Is secession a “right” that can be gained by plebiscite under the Constitution (either US or ours?)

    Under the constitution? I suppose not. But in principle, yes. If a people want to secede from the government, they should be able to do so, ideally with no bloodshed.

18. cocoy on August 6th, 2008 8:09 pm

    Abe, this is off topic to the issue of mindanao) but i’d like to point this out

    Finally, let me state that the unitary system has failed our nation for more than a century already. Isn’t it time to experiment on something new? Those who are allergic to a GMA holdover beyond 2010, would you change your mind (that is, go for federalism) if in a charter change initiative, the incumbent president is specifically constitutionally barred from running for president or prime minister under the new charter?

    posted about this very lament several times in the past and here recently just a few days ago.

    Jeg, i remember famous words: “Give me liberty or give me death”. that said, From the second hand sources that i’ve been hearing even Muslims are against this deal. From what i gather MILF does not represent the Muslim community.

    Also what can MILF offer the Muslim community of Mindanao that they don’t already enjoy? Anyone can trade with everybody. no one is locking them up. no one says this country is just for Tagalogs or Cebuanos. Muslims are free to worship. They are free to trade, to write to laugh. Everyone is free to say, do and trade for years. will MILF grant them the same freedom? From where i sit it is the in fighting in mindanao that is causing such problems as to prevent that island from fully being develop.

    i agree w/DJB:

    After a “Final Peace Agreement” was signed in 1996, I claim that the MILF insurgency was immoral and unjustified. They should lay down their arms and take up the ARMM more seriously and make that idea work first.
    What is it really about a neo-sultanate that would improve substantially upon the ARMM and not a create a new malignancy in the body politic?
    All this fiddling around with the Constitution is a cop-out that seeks to blame the “system” for the failures of politicians and warlords. It’s a game lawyers and academicians play all the time, but read the lips of the people: they don’t want Bangsamorostan!

19. DJB Rizalist on August 6th, 2008 10:37 pm

    cvj,

    I was waiting for this!

    Those sacred words invented Nationalism, Anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism all in one grand year: 1776. But Great Britain was not obligated to change its laws, its charters, or its mind about the Colonies. Rather the Americans took matters into their own hands, broke the bands that tied them to Britain and created their own destiny. They didn’t negotiate for it with the King. They threw his tea out into Boston Harbor instead.

    Let the Moros do that and not pretend with cutesie pie “done deals” and “peace negotiations”.

    That is, if they can get the Moros to back them up enough to make those sacred words apply to them, just as the American Revolutionaries had the people behind them. If they have failed it is not our fault. Maybe the Bangsamoro, as I suspect, don’t support the MILF, and that is why they have not won. Let’s not confound the two, because they ain’t. The MILF is not the bangsamoro people.

    I am not impressed with the fact that they’ve been fighting for so long, because everybody knows that guerillas can sustain a war indefinitely with only 5 to 10% support. In fact if it has taken this long, it’s proof they don’t have popular support. But then we already know that about the MILF.

    The comparison to 1776 is atrocious and flippant.

    Now, I know you like to play word games, cvj but I hope you do get the point: it’s same kind of cuteness we get from the MILF.

    Secession and revolution are not absolute human rights. You actually have to have Justice and the people on your side in order to win. Your cause has to be “right”–independent of whether those you are tied to agree or not.

20. cvj on August 6th, 2008 11:12 pm

    DJB, my comment (at 11:46 am) was a direct response to your question:

    Is secession a “right” that can be gained by plebiscite under the Constitution (either US or ours?)

    The US Declaration of Independence makes clear that rebellion is a right, but it is an extra-constitutional right. So the answer to the question you posed is no which puts us on the same side of the issue.

    I don’t know why you find the comparison with 1776 ‘atrocious’ given that the MILF can trace its roots to the spirit of 1776. You and I may believe they are wrong but so did the Royalists during the time of Washington and Jefferson. Try to look at things more objectively.

21. cvj on August 6th, 2008 11:13 pm

    the above should read “…given that the MILF rebellion can trace its roots…”

22. Bencard on August 7th, 2008 3:03 am

    the “right to rebellion” recognized in the u.s. declaration of independence is a qualified one, with a number of preconditions for its exercise. foremost of this is reasonability of its cause, e.g., serious and repeated violation of the people’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; despotism; withdrawal of consent by the governed (not just by a fraction thereof).

    i don’t see these preconditions present in the milf “rebellion”, certainly not in its desire to have its own territorial sphere of power by a dubious claim to an “ancestral domain”.

23. Jeg on August 7th, 2008 9:55 am

    cocoy: From the second hand sources that i’ve been hearing even Muslims are against this deal. From what i gather MILF does not represent the Muslim community.

    If so let the people decide. Let them reject the MILF in a plebiscite. In the meantime, let’s treat the south like Filipinos. Get the armies of the north out of there. Move them to guard the coasts against foreign enemies like theyre supposed to do. Then MILF can disarm. In the meantime, train the cops and the NBI in anti-terror skills.

    Launching tanks, artillery, and airstrikes against Filipinos? Without the approval of Congress? Ridiculous and immoral. At least in DJB’s example, Abe Lincoln asked Congress for permission to wage war on the south.

24. Abe N. Margallo on August 7th, 2008 11:37 am

    “Federalism is merely the newest ploy of the administration to try and amend the Charter.” – DJB

    In fairness to GMA, this “ploy” should be taken as plainly speculative, to say the very least. GMA’s “all-out peace policy” in Mindanao beginning with the Tripoli Agreement of 2001 had been launched way before she was caught on tape saying Hello to Garci.

    Hence, I’ll ask again: Federalism, anyone …if GMA is constitutionally barred from gunning for another term, either as Pres or PM?

25. cvj on August 7th, 2008 12:34 pm

    Bencard, i think we’re all agreed (i.e. DJB, you, me) that, as per the US Declaration of Independence, there is such a thing as a ‘right to rebellion’ which are subject to certain qualifications. Such right is therefore extra-constitutional and extra-legal. Where we disagree is on whether such qualifications apply to the present case (i.e. the Moro rebellion) although i suspect that our positions are actually closer than our mutual animosities would let on.

    Abe, to me it depends on what we decentralize and what we keep central. I support the 75% (center)-25%(region) resource extraction arrangement and i believe that the government should unilaterally implement it across all regions as this does not require Charter Change.

    Within each federal state, i prefer that the City Mayor (of the state’s premiere city) should also be the state governor since i think that, from a development standpoint, a relationship of center-periphery between urban and rural areas should be maintained. The last thing we would want to happen is intra-federal state conflict between the city dwellers and rural folk.

    I believe though that there should still be direct national elections for head of government as well as election of a legislature via proportional representation. (I also agree with Manolo that there should be two chambers although i’m willing to allow the governors to be the second chamber.) The military (armed forces & national guard) and the judiciary should should also be centralized. All this is to ensure that feudal arrangements don’t reassert itself.

26. Current » The march of folly in Mindanao on August 7th, 2008 1:24 pm

    […] we must assume, sincerely participated in the process out of the belief it offers a way forward. Abe Margallo also agrees the Supreme Court may have been out of bounds in issuing the TRO vs. the […]

27. Manuel L. Quezon III on August 7th, 2008 1:53 pm

    […] we must assume, sincerely participated in the process out of the belief it offers a way forward. Abe Margallo also agrees the Supreme Court may have been out of bounds in issuing the TRO vs. the […]

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