NEARLY three months after the botched terrorist hunt that succeeded in killing Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli Hir (also known as Marwan) in the Philippines, but also resulted in scores of Filipino combatants (both police commandos and Muslim rebels) dead, the country has sadly not moved on.
With the June deadline fast approaching for passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), a huge question mark hangs over the prospects for lasting peace in the Philippine south.
Several things are crystallised by such a potentially tragic turn of events. For starters, the Philippines has apparently learnt the wrong lesson from the aborted Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) that preceded the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the implementation of which will be impaired by non-passage of the BBL.
Wide-ranging public discussions held nationwide right from when fresh negotiations started between the current Aquino government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the lead-up to the BBL were a very conscious and commendable effort to be transparent and open about the peace talks.
Yet, at the most critical juncture, such as now, the ugliest of popular stereotypes of Filipino Muslims have resurfaced to possibly scuttle the carefully crafted peace agreement a second time. In the process, the Aquino administration is being pilloried for being somehow “anti-Filipino”. The insinuation is most unfortunate for Malaysia as the facilitator of the negotiations over nearly two decades that produced both the MOA-AD and the CAB.
President Benigno Aquino now stands accused of being virtually a traitor, selling out the country’s interests, primarily to Malaysia, but also to the United States which has supported the peace process all along.
To his credit, Aquino has been characteristically firm and persistent when he feels that what he has done is truly in his nation’s best overall interests. He has not given up passage of the BBL as a lost cause and has instigated the convening of a non-partisan “peace panel” spearheaded by the country’s two active Roman Catholic cardinals — Manila’s Luis Antonio Tagle and Cotabato’s Orlando Quevedo — to exert high-profile pressure towards completing the peace process.
If, as the Aquino administration now concedes, the BBL faces “bad publicity” that jeopardises its smooth passage, what this further crystallises is that the “bad publicity” redounds on Malaysia as well.
Given how much effort Malaysia has invested in this particular peace process and how we must care how our nation is perceived regionally and internationally, it is incumbent upon us to make a last-gasp publicity blitz in the Philippine media to explain our role in all this and to counter conspiratorial talk about any sinister motivations we may have towards the Philippines.
Some of the popular suspicions in the Philippines relate to why the MILF insisted on a parliamentary form of government akin to ours instead of sticking with the Philippines’ presidential/executive structure of government. Also, in an overwhelmingly Catholic country, there is little public appreciation of or sympathy for a religious minority wanting to carve out a political identity distinct from the majority.
Malaysia, as a Muslim-majority nation, is thus viewed with suspicion not just for providing succour to the Philippines’ Muslim minority, but also for somehow creating problems for the country by helping Filipino Muslims realise their dream of political self-determination.
Such concerns and misconceptions about Malaysia’s involvement can be fairly easily countered by straightforward presentations of facts. Such as how it was actually Malaysia’s influence that persuaded the MILF to sue for peace with the Philippine government, instead of insisting on outright independence.
Or that Malaysia’s own federal and parliamentary governing structure actually offers a workable, indeed quite successful, model for the Philippines as a political middle-way that recognises the legitimate political aspirations of Filipino Muslims without compromising Philippine sovereignty over its entire territory.
Moreover, Umno, as a nationalist political organisation that won independence for Malaysia, and went on to successfully develop the country in a manner politically inclusive of the country’s own minorities, can serve as a plausible inspiration as the MILF morphs from being a “national liberation movement” into a political party to contest elections, and likely govern the Bangsamoro with its own minority populations to contend with.
Ultimately, recognising differences, however, defining (religiously, ethnically, linguistically, etc.) and accommodating them within a single polity as Malaysia is doing or Canada does (by recognising itself to be “bi-national” on account of its English- and French-speaking “nations”) will only increase the esteem the Philippines deserves as the region’s foremost democracy.
The writer is a Kuching-based journalist