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The MOA is NOT dead

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

By: Engr. Don Mustapha Arbison Loong

 
The MOA-AD is “dead”. This became the headline in newspapers when the Supreme Court (SC) declared the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) as unconstitutional last October 14, 2008. The “death” of the MOA-AD had divided and polarized the country like never before in recent history. 

The debate on the MOA awakened dormant religious prejudice and discrimination between Muslims and Christians. While the people who were Anti-MOA celebrated, some Moros felt that they had lost something. Some other Moro sectors felt like an “anti-dote” to the Moro problem was deliberately withheld from them. Disillusioned MILF rebels renewed hostilities with the government forces. Suddenly, the dreaded “ilagas” emerge and revived past Muslim-Christian community conflicts. There is so much blissful celebration and emotional retaliation by each side respectively, yet only a few really know the issues involved that was “killed” by the Supreme Court decision.   (more…)

09.11.2008 Bangsamoro No Comments

Reality Check

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

By Ibrahim Canana

Sometime in 2006, if memory serves me right, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told a group of foreign diplomats and media men that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) finds it difficult to deal with the ‘Moro rebels’ because they are splintered into so many factions. Ermita was alluding to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) as well as to the various factions of the latter.

The point that Ermita was trying to impress upon his audience was that the negotiation between the MILF and the GRP, which was going through a rough time at that particular moment, is quite impossible to conclude because the GRP does not know whom to deal with. That is why, he averred, the Moro Fronts have to unite first and put their acts together before the GRP can ink a final deal with the MILF. This is not, however the first time that Ermita raised this issue. (more…)

17.08.2008 Bangsamoro 3 Comments

ON BEING A MORO AND A MUSLIM

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

(A Statement from the Office of Anak Mindanao Party List Representative Mujiv S. Hataman on the Privilege Speech of Rep. Teddy Boy Locsin)

When the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front caused a wave of protests among different sectors of society, we feared the resurging of anti-Moro discrimination and prejudice.

Though we believed that the said Memorandum of Agreement could have been a major breakthrough in the peace process, we adhered and respected the Temporary Restraining Order issued by the Supreme Court, acknowledging the right to information and consultation raised by the protesters. We welcomed this opportunity for calmness, rationality and objectivity in the discussion and study of the Agreement, thereby easing our aforementioned fear.  (more…)

07.08.2008 Bangsamoro 2 Comments

PRIVILEGE SPEECH AGAINST POSTPONEMENT OF ARMM ELECTION AND THE GRP-MILF MOA (By Congressman Locsin)

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

My classmate, Digs Dilangalen says, let us approach this issue calmly. That is easy to do for one who stands to gain an entirely new country. It is harder to do for a citizen of the country at whose expense that gain shall be made.

TOMORROW the Government of the Republic of the Philippines will sign with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the country that was funding the secessionist struggle in the South, a peace agreement. It is styled as an innocuous “MOA” (memorandum of agreement), supposedly on just the subject of ancestral domain. In truth, it shall be part of a comprehensive peace agreement whose details are, however, also spelled out in the MOA, which, for all intents and purposes, gives away the very vitals of a sovereign country, a republic and a democracy to boot. (more…)

07.08.2008 Bangsamoro 4 Comments