ALL is not well with the ever-treacherous journey to real and meaningful political autonomy for the Moros of Mindanao in the Philippines, despite the much-heralded clinching of a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) after years of twists and turns despite the best efforts of the international community under Malaysian auspices.
Officials who are parties to the agreement from both the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have admitted as much in recent weeks. This came about after the draft basic law drawn up in accordance with the CAB was forwarded to President Benigno Aquino for transmittal to the Philippine Congress for legislative approval.
The legislative draft was recently returned from the presidential palace after weeks of vetting by lawyers, reportedly with so much re-writing that there was no choice but for the Philippines and MILF negotiating panels to go back to the drawing board.
After two “workshop” sessions — one in Kuala Lumpur and another last weekend in Manila — there seemed to be no concrete progress made amidst reports of ill-tempered and frustrated exchanges instead. This as the clock is ticking, with precious little time to lose for the creation of the Bangsamoro as the Philippine political calendar closes in.
There is now talk of a third summit meeting between the Philippine president and MILF leader Murad Ebrahim to salvage whatever is salvageable. It is very evident that both leaders desperately want Bangsamoro’s creation to happen and that the personal chemistry between them both is such that any salvage mission may still succeed. If only all depended on statesmanship at the summit.
Unfortunately, that may not be the case. Aquino, now into the final trimester of his presidential term, appears to have the more challenging political hurdles to cross. Just as his political capital is now required to get his legislative allies to ensure safe passage of the draft Bangsamoro law, he is losing it like never before. The president’s personal popularity has plummeted in recent weeks to the extent that moves have been made to impeach him in Congress.
Even more ominous, Aquino seems to be on a somewhat inexplicable collision course with the entire Philippine Supreme Court. The court had unanimously rendered the president almost ineffectual in recent weeks by declaring his use of discretionary funds unconstitutional.
The issue of political discretionary funds (popularly labelled pork barrel) has become toxic in recent months after a massive scandal involving the funds’ abuse by legislators came to light. The president’s very public lashing-out against the declaration that his own discretionary use of such funds is unconstitutional has only seen public outrage over the pork barrel re-directed towards him instead.
The upper-most concern of those involved in the Bangsamoro issue is always the uncertainty as to whether its creation complies with the Philippine Constitution. If, as likely, the Bangsamoro basic law is tested in court, the chances of a repeat of what happened to an earlier agreement forged by Aquino’s predecessor with the MILF may be more than even. Then, the country’s Supreme Court struck the agreement down on the eve of its actual signing in Kuala Lumpur.
But the MILF has not come this far down the road only to see its already watered-down dream of recognition as a self-governing “sub-state” diluted even further.
An analyst of all things Moro, Cotabato City-based Father Jun Mercado wrote in the Philippine Daily Inquirer over the weekend that Aquino may eventually be confronted with what he has always set out against: constitutional amendments to accommodate Moro political aspirations.
In fact, it is precisely the political dysfunction attending the Philippines currently that has all this while motivated the MILF to insist on carving out a self-governing framework that is distinctly different. The Bangsamoro aspiration for the creation of a Malaysia-like state under a parliamentary system may not jive with the Philippine constitutional provisions for a unitary nation with an America-like distinct separation of powers among three equal branches of government.
If constitutional amendments become the inescapable way out for the creation of Bangsamoro, the massive and laborious exercise that entails in the Philippine context will eat up even more precious time but, all things considered, that probably will be the best guarantee of the new entity’s long-term sustainability.