The term “right to self-determination” – more popularly known by its acronym, “RSD” – and particularly in the context of Mindanao and the centuries-old struggle of the Bangsamoro people, has been widely misunderstood, especially by the mainstream majority of Philippine society. It is because it is always associated with the armed struggle, waged by the two major Moro Fronts against national government.

The sharp and sometimes violent reactions of Non-Moros (and also some Moros) against the struggle of the Bangsamoro is borne out of their ignorance of the latter’s history as a people, their way of life, their present problems, and their present struggles and aspirations. It is also caused by their fear of how the Bangsamoro will treat them and their properties if the Bangsamoro will be restored of their RSD. These imaginary fears (sometimes real) are partly due to not only by how the Moro were portrayed by the colonizers – which was carried over to the neo-colonial times, as traitors, villains and untrustworthy people – but also because of past bad experiences against the Moro, thus the stereotyping.

However, what many in the mainstream majority do not know of, or maybe even refuse to know of, is that Bangsamoro RSD is not only a simple armed struggle. It is an assertion that is being made by all the Moro groups that constitute the Bangsamoro spectrum. Like a prism, it has several facets to it, almost all (if not all) of which are based on a very long historical antecedent. Without this antecedent, there would not have been an impetus for an armed struggle or an overall assertion in the first place. Three of these stand out the most over the rest.

First, Bangsamoro RSD is anchored on the often-denied fact that the Bangsamoro, as a people and a nation, has existed centuries before the Declaration of Philippine Independence in 1898, much more so by the Grant of Philippine Independence of the United States in 1946. Prior to these dates, the Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao, the four Principalities of Lanao, and their respective tributary domains have been recognized in the Far East by the middle-aged Malayan states and even by such giant as the Chinese Empire. The treaties made by the Spanish government, and later the American government, with these sultanates are also proof that they have indeed been regarded as nations long before the Philippine Republic.

Second, Bangsamoro RSD has stemmed from age-old injustices done by Philippine colonizers, and then later by the Filipinos themselves, to the Bangsamoro people. According to Archbishop Orlando Quevedo himself, injustice was meted out on the Bangsamoro’s identity, on their ancestral territory, on their political sovereignty, and their integral development. These injustices have been done upon the Bangsamoro for many decades, not only by the foreign colonizers of the past, but also by the Filipino mainstream majority upon their assumption to power.

Third, Bangsamoro RSD is also hinged on the fact that the Bangsamoro people were forcibly made part of a nation that they did not want to be a part of in the first place, let alone asked if they wanted to be part of it at all, and then later treated as second class people, given the oh so rare privilege of being milked heavily of their ancestral territory’s rich natural resources in the name of nation building and receiving mere scraps and hand-me-downs in return for such humongous “forced tributes”. No wonder the assembled Moro leaders of the 1924 Zamboanga Declaration and the 1939 Dansalan Declaration called for a restoration of a Moro Nation that is separate and distinct from the Philippine archipelago. They had known long ago that the Moro people would never be treated properly should the Filipinos be given the privilege to govern their affairs, despite their categorical differences in way of life. And although claimed by the Filipino mainstream majority as part of the greater Philippine body politic, the Bangsamoro never felt part of this body from the very beginning. The five provinces that constitute the ARMM, with the highest scores in poverty, infant mortality, literacy, lifespan, and all other negative criteria of the Human Development Index, is more than sufficient proof of unresponsiveness or even willful neglect of the Philippine national government and the Filipino mainstream majority to the Bangsamoro people.

Bangsamoro RSD, therefore, came from the pains, hurts, suffering and anguish experienced by the minoritized Bangsamoro people in the hands of the Filipino mainstream majority and the oppressive and suppressive rule of their government.

It is from the tormented massed ranks of the Bangsamoro people that the two Moro Fronts poured forth. And it is in defense of the very survival of Bangsamoro people that the two Moro Fronts have come to banner in the armed struggle against government, and later, have come to represent and negotiate for in the Moro-GRP Peace Process.

But then again, Bangsamoro RSD can be seen like a cake with two halves. One half delves in the realm of restoring the lost political status of the Bangsamoro as a people and a nation, while the other half focuses on the Bangsamoro’s integral development, both in the short and long term.

So, while the Moro Fronts are engrossed in pursuing the peace talks with national government, which is part of the mandate given to them by the Bangsamoro people, with the end in view of attaining a political status that would define the political relationship of the Bangsamoro people with the Philippine state, another major Moro grouping, the Bangsamoro civil society organizations – or the BM CSOs – can find their niche by drafting the Bangsamoro Development Agenda (BMDA). This is on top of their efforts to support the peace talks in many different ways.

Thus, Moro CSOs have converged and banded together to ask key leaders and representatives of groups and sectors that constitute the whole Bangsamoro spectrum to consolidate and develop the “Civil Society Organization – Bangsamoro Development Agenda”, or CSO-BMDA.

The twelve thematic development areas of the BMDA are deemed important areas of development of every society. The BMDA contains both more generic and specific strategies towards identified goals. The efforts at articulating the BMDA is as important as the struggle to achieve a certain level of political status. The latter shall serve to enforce the former.

The articulation of the BMDA will allow the Moro people, especially the non-Moro, to better appreciate the context and justification of the continuing assertion of the Bangsamoro of their right to self-determination.

The CSO-BMDA does not only articulate the aspirations of the Bangsamoro but also provides a readily available advocacy material for the Moro people.

The deep prejudices against the Bangsamoro is making the peace process doubly difficult to convince, especially to the non-Moro, that this is correcting the historical and social injustices against the Moro people and not to subordinate them under the Bangsamoro nor to confiscate their legitimately acquired properties.

It has to be made known and understood by as many groups as possible in a way that is non-harassing and non-threatening. This is the big extra challenge.

It is widely believed that economic growth and development have bypassed the southern regions of the Philippines. This is seen as the cause of the serious political problems that now plague Mindanao. A closer look at Mindanao’s economic development, however, reveals that far from being isolated from the mainstream of the national economy, the island has been a major performer and a primary contributor to the country’s productive capacities.

Lured by vast reserves of natural resources, business concerns have invested capital and technology and established ventures that have generated enormous profits for their owners and executives. But the resulting wealth and incomes have not benefited the greater majority of its people. Poverty and other social indicators point to a more distressed condition for Mindanao residents than for the nation as a whole.

This paradox of high growth rates and the simultaneous existence of an impoverished population have challenged scholars and development planners for many years. In the Mindanao case, this enigma is exacerbated by the effects of internal colonialism – the transfer of wealth from the southern regions to the nucleus of economic and political power in the north.

Demography

Mindanao, together with the Sulu Archipelago, occupies a land area of 10.2 million hectares or one-third of the country’s area of 30 million hectares. The historian B.R. Rodil’s classifies Mindanao’s population of 18.13 million as of 2000 into two major categories – the indigenous peoples and the migrant settlers. The indigenous population can be further classified into three groups. The first are the Islamized peoples (a.k.a. Moros) who number 3.63 million or 20 percent.

The second indigenous category is composed of the Lumad population who number 907,000 persons (6 percent). Some of these are the Manobo, Bagobo, B’laan, Higaunon, Mamanwa, Mansaka, Manuvu, Subanen, T’boli, and Teduray peoples. The third indigenous category number around 900,000 (5 percent) and is composed of the Visayan-speaking Christianized population of Northern and Eastern Mindanao and the Chavacano speakers of Zamboanga and Basilan who were already in Mindanao when the Spanish arrived in the 17th century.

Approximately 70 percent of the Mindanao population is composed of settlers who arrived in the 20th century from Luzon and the Visayas as part of government resettlement programs. Predominantly Christian, they also include the Chinese settlers and those belonging to the third indigenous category. Together with the third indigenous category, this group constitutes about 13.6 million people (75 percent).

There are, at the moment, six politico-administrative regions: Region IX (Zamboanga Peninsula), Region X (Northern Mindanao), Region XI (Davao Region), Region XII (SoCCSKSarGen), Caraga Region, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). A total of twenty-eight (28) provinces and nine (9) chartered cities belong to the six Mindanao regions.

Mindanao’s Contribution to the National Economy

Mindanao’s large productive base enables it to contribute significantly to the country’s economic growth. Its forest area comprises 41 percent of the country’s vegetative cover and 56 percent of Philippine commercial forest land. It produces 73 percent of the national value added in the forestry sector. Fifty-six percent of total Philippine commercial forest land is in Mindanao. More than half of timber licenses issued in the country are granted for Mindanao operations. Mindanao wood products such as plywood, veneer, and lumber comprise over 90 percent of the country’s total production. Mindanao’s exports accounts for 70 percent of logs, 52 percent of lumber, over 90 percent of plywood, and 92 percent of veneer.

Its agricultural area of 3.73 million hectares comprises 38 percent of the country’s total farm area. The island produces 43 percent of the Philippines’ agricultural output. Overall, Mindanao supplies 40 percent of the country’s food requirements and 30 percent of the national food trade.1

Commercial and export crops are planted in about 51 percent of farm area and includes coconut, tobacco, rubber, sugar, export bananas, palm oil, coffee, abaca, and fruits. Commercialized agriculture has been on the rise with its land utilization and growth exceeding that of food crops.

The waters around Mindanao and Sulu contribute 32 percent of the country’s total fishery products and more than half of the country’s total commercial fish catch. Tuna fishing has become the country’s number one fishery sector with major export markets in Japan and the US. Thirteen Mindanao fishing firms based in the cities of General Santos and Zamboanga export about 80 percent of the country’s tuna.

The Philippines is the world’s leading producer of coconut and coconut products and more than half of the country’s coconut area is in Mindanao. More than 60 percent of Philippine copra and coconut oil exports come from Mindanao. Most of the country’s coconut oil mills are based in Mindanao. Agriculture, fishery and forestry production in Mindanao combine for 36 percent of value added for these three sectors of the country.

Rubber plantations in the Philippines are exclusive to Mindanao with some 60,000 hectares in planted area. Sugarlands in Mindanao total 56,000 hectares with three large sugar mills in Bukidnon, North Cotabato and Davao del Sur. The Bukidnon-based BUSCO has an ultra-modern mill funded by the Japan Import-Export Bank. Mindanao is also the main producer for coffee (75 percent) and for one-third of the country’s livestock products.

In the minerals sector, Mindanao’s share of the national total is about 25 percent. Gold, copper, nickel, chromite and coal are the major mining products of Mindanao as well as silver, zinc, and lead. The world’s largest nickel reserves are in northeastern and southern Mindanao. In February 2010, Sumitomo Metal Mining Company announced plans to invest $2.11 billion over three years to expand its nickel operations in Surigao del Norte.2 Gold and copper are extensively mined in the Agusan and Davao provinces. Five companies in Mindanao produce Portland cement including the country’s biggest and modern cement manufacturer, Bacnotan Consolidated Industries in Davao City.

Mindanao accounts for one-fourth of the country’s total export receipts. Its coconut products account for 43 percent of the country’s coconut exports, while wood products corner 60 percent of the national total. The country’s export fruits industry is composed almost entirely of bananas and pineapples. One hundred percent of these exports, comprising 90 percent of Philippine fruit exports come from Mindanao.

In terms of gross domestic product (GDP), however, Mindanao’s contribution appears less significant. In 2003, the island’s GDP of P192 billion was only 18 percent of the national total. The same year, Luzon’s share was 66 percent. Northern Mindanao had the highest GDP share of 27.1 percent of Mindanao’s total. The Davao Region was next with 25.4 percent while Soccskargen was in third with 20.1 percent. The Zamboanga region was fourth with 14.8 percent, Caraga fifth with 7.6 percent while ARMM was last with only 5.2 percent.

Mindanao’s growth rate, though less than the national rate and behind that of Luzon, is not that far behind. Between 1990 and 2000, Mindanao grew by 22.7 percent compared to the national rate of 24.4 percent. Between 1995 and 2000, Mindanao’s average GDP growth rate of 3.69 percent was only slightly less than the national average rate of 3.76 percent and of Luzon’s 3.97 percent. From 2003 to 2007, Mindanao’s average growth rate rose to 5.02 percent, with the 2007 growth rate alone standing at 6.91 percent.

Despite lagging behind the rest of the country based on several economic indicators, Mindanao enjoyed a positive trade balance in 2003 of US$707 million compared to the country’s negative trade balance of US$1.7 billion. Despite this overall positive note, interregional disparities still characterize Mindanao trading patterns with the Davao and the Soccskargen regions having the highest surpuses. In 2007, Mindanao exports totaled $2.6 billion while imports amounted to $1.2 billion, or a trade surplus of $1.44 billion.

Capital Formation

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lists a total of 3,954 corporations in Mindanao who registered between 2002 and 2008 with a total paid-up capital of P2.81 billion. Measured against the national figures, Mindanao’s new firms was only 3.46 percent of the Philippines’ total and 2.61 percent of paid-up capital.

The Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCO) announced that, in 2008, 40 investment projects valued P13.7 billion were registered with the Board of Investments (BOI). This constituted a 72 percent growth from the 2007 figure. MEDCO further reported that local investments almost doubled in value from P6.124 billion in 2007 to P12.004 billion in 2008 or a 96 percent increase. This surpassed the record set in 1998 of P9.5 billion.

Foreign Investments

According to the MEDCO, direct foreign investments registered for 2008 in Mindanao had a total value of P1.704 billion. Sixty-percent of these were Japanese investments in power generation sector, marine and petroleum products. Canadians were second with 21 percent mainly in the mining business. The British and South Koreans shared 4 each and were engaged in the export of Cavendish banana, petroleum products and coco peat/coco fiber business.

Foreign and foreign-affiliated firms (FFCs) in Mindanao operate in 21 categories of product and industry lines. The wood products industry had the most number of participating FFC firms, with 16; followed by manufacturing with 13; fishing and fish products, 12; banana production, 9; mining, 7; and coconut products, coffee, and cacao (cocoa) with 6 firms each.3

In terms of regional and provincial distribution, the FFCs operate in 119 locations in Mindanao. Many firms are present in several provinces and even several towns in one province. The Davao region is the major host of FFC operations with 50 locations (42 percent) followed by Northern Mindanao with 30 locations (25 percent) while the Zamboanga region has 28 (24 percent).

Infrastructure Development

In her 2009 State of the Nation Report, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced the completion of several major infrastructure projects in Mindanao including the P2.1 billion 882-meter Diosdado Macapagal Bridge in Butuan City, the 210 MW Clean Coal-Fired Power Plant, the 1-megawatt Solar Power Plant in Cagayan de Oro City, the P572.87-million Cagayan de Oro Port and the P420.22-million Davao Port.

Airport projects include the P700-million Butuan Airport Upgrading Project; the P600-million Cotabato Airport Rehabilitation Project; the P478-million Dipolog Airport Improvement Project and the P215-million Ozamis Airport Development Project; the P545-million Pagadian Airport Development Project; and the P423.50-million Zamboanga Airport Improvement Project have already been completed.

A major undertaking is the Cotabato-Agusan River Basin Development Project (CARBDP) which was implemented from 1975 to 2000 with an initial cost of P15.7 billion covered 11 provinces or one-third of Mindanao’s land area. It was funded mainly by foreign loans from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and Japan. The project budget has since ballooned such that for 1998 and 1999 alone, total allotments for the project reached P173 billion. Total project assets reached P331 billion by 1999. The Lower Agusan Development Project is the newest component of the CARBDP and consists of two phases with a total project cost of P2.18 billion.

Official Development Assistance (ODA)

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US mainland, Mindanao has been given increased attention by foreign donors under the assumption that the Moro separatist movement is somehow linked to a global Islamic militant movement. This is not to say that donors did not pay attention to Mindanao in the past. The World Bank had, in 1998, committed US$10 million for the Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD) Social Fund Project following the signing of a peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1996.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has, since 1996, also provided grants under various programs in Mindanao that, as of 2006, totaled US$292 million. Following the post 9/11 pattern, USAID assistance almost tripled after 2001 from US$90.6 million in 1996-2001 to US$242 million in 2002-2006.

As of September 2006, there were 21 active ODA loan projects in Mindanao totaling US$917.75 million. Ten of these were Japan-funded projects, with loan amounts amounting to US$473.04 million, or 52 percent of the total for the area. All these projects, plus the grants program of USAID are ostensibly meant to advance the peace building process in Mindanao. Japan had earlier launched in December 2002, a “Support Package for Peace and Security in Mindanao.”

In April 2003, President Macapagal-Arroyo launched what has been dubbed a “Mini-Marshall Plan” called “Mindanao Natin” worth P5.5 billion in government funds and US$1.3 billion in ODA funds for the next three to five years. The program targeted 5,000 Muslim villages in Mindanao’s regions, but the figures as of December 2006 show that not all of the announced projects got off the ground. For example, the World Bank’s commitment of US$279 million for four projects was eventually pared down to one project worth only US$34 million.

Aside from the “Mindanao Natin” initiative, a multi-donor Mindanao Trust Fund – Reconstruction and Development Program (MTF-RDP) has been established with the World Bank as the lead donor and Secretariat Coordinator. Other donors are the European Commission, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, and UNDP. Also known as the Peace Fund, MTF-RDP identified the rehabilitation needs of MILF combatants, MILF communities and indigenous peoples (IPs) estimated to cost US$400 million.

Development Strategies

Mindanao development strategies are driven essentially by the Philippine state’s objective of integrating the southern economy into the national mainstream. The focus is on large-scale infrastructure development to attract investments in export-led and market-driven growth industries. The aim is to open up more of Mindanao’s natural resources to exploitation and extraction with the private sector as the prime mover. Scarce attention, however, is paid to the actual needs of Mindanao’s peoples such as directly addressing poverty and inequality which are the principal causes of social unrest and rebellion.

During Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule (1972-1986), such strategies were formulated in the midst of increasing social tensions, the depletion of the land frontier, land concentration and agrarian conflicts, and the marginalization and impoverishment especially of the Moro and Lumad peoples. Post-Marcos development strategies did not differ essentially from the previous regime. Whether these be Corazon Aquino’s regional industrial centers, Fidel Ramos’ Mindanao Investment Development Authority (MIDA) and Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (Bimp-Eaga), or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s “Mindanao National Initiatives” (Mindanao Natin), the basic premises, principles, and thrusts have remained unchanged.

In 2006, President Macapagal-Arroyo launched what she called the Super Regional Development Strategy, which is meant to “harness the common competitive advantages of a cluster of regions and provinces.” The country was then divided into five Super Regions with “Agribusiness Mindanao” being one of them. As the name implies, Mindanao is to focus on agribusiness as its “competitive edge,” particularly in the cultivation of “high value crops.”

In January 2010, Congress passed a bill creating a Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) which seeks to accelerate growth and development by putting in place a central planning agency for Southern Philippines. MinDA is to replace and strengthen MedCo and provide the strategic direction for Mindanao by formulating an integrated regional development framework.4

Echoing Macapagal-Arroyo’s initiative, MinDA would focus on agribusiness as a major area for economic development. It is doubtful, however, whether Mindanao’s hope lies in agribusiness, which, at the moment, already occupies a central place in the island’s economy. Agribusiness activities have caused more problems than solutions for Mindanao’s people, through environmental degradation, human rights violations, corruption, health problems, and wealth transfers.

Human Development Pitfalls

Despite the decades-long economic growth thrusts in Mindanao and apart from the economic disparities engendered by the unequal economic relations within the island and between Mindanao and the rest of the country, basic human development indicators reveal that economic growth has not benefited Mindanao’s peoples.

Using the human development index (HDI) developed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Mindanao provinces fared badly compared to other Philippine provinces. Mindanao’s average HDI was only 0.635 in 2003, or 15 percent lower than the national HDI of 0.747. Seventeen out of 24 Mindanao provinces were in the bottom half of the national list. Worse, nine of the bottom ten provinces were all located in Mindanao. No Mindanao province placed in the upper fifteen percent. The bottom four provinces were all from Muslim-dominated provinces.

In the per capita income category, Mindanao had an average of only US$1,546 which is a mere 41 percent of the national per capita income of US$2,609. Furthermore, eight Mindanao provinces occupy the last eight places among the 77 provinces of the country and twelve of the last 14 places. Four of the twelve lowly-ranked provinces are Muslim dominated and are part of the ARMM. The highest nationally ranked Mindanao provinces, South Cotabato at 17th with US$2,223, Davao del Sur at 18th with US$2,158, Camiguin at 20th with US$2,110, and Misamis Oriental at 25th with US$2,045 all still had per capita incomes that were lower than the national average.

Poverty incidence in Mindanao is consistent with the island’s low standing in the national human development index. Its average poverty incidence of 42.4 percent in 2003 was 40 percent higher than the national average of 25.7 percent. Four Mindanao provinces, however, had poverty incidences lower than the national average of 25.7 percent: South Cotabato, North Cotabato, Davao del Sur, and Davao del Norte. On the other hand, six Mindanao provinces had exceedingly high poverty incidences, greater than 50 percent: Sulu (88.8%), Tawi Tawi (69.9%), Basilan (65.6%), Zamboanga del Norte (63.2%), Maguindanao (55.8%), and Siquijor (51.9%). Another seven provinces had poverty rates of between 40 percent and 47 percent in 2003.

Between 2000 and 2003, thirteen Mindanao provinces experienced a deterioration in their poverty situation. Large increases in poverty were registered for Maguindanao (by 19.6%), Surigao del Sur (by 14.4%), Davao Oriental (by 13.4%), Zamboanga del Norte (by 11.3%), and Surigao del Norte (by 8.2%). Nationwide, five Mindanao provinces were cited as among the ten top losers in poverty reduction incidence between 2000 and 2003: Maguindanao, Surigao del Sur, Davao Oriental, Zamboanga del Norte, and Surigao del Norte.

Inequality measures for Mindanao reflect wide disparities in income distribution and consumption patterns among its population. Its 2003 average Gini index of 40.8, however, although better than the Philippines national index of 43.9, represented a decline from the 2000 index of 36.4 points. On a province-by-province assessment, 21 out of 24 Mindanao provinces suffered declines in their inequality measures between 2000 and 2003.

Another measure of poverty is the subsistence incidence or the capacity to satisfy food requirements. For the country as a whole, 13.8 percent of the population was living below the subsistence food threshold and was thus unable to meet their food requirements in 2003. For Mindanao, however, all its regions registered lower capacities than the national average. The Zamboanga and Caraga regions had the worst record as the two landed at the bottom of the list of 17 Philippine regions with 32.8 (17th) and 31.8 (16th) respectively. Taking all six Mindanao regions, the subsistence incidence was 24.88, or 11.1 points higher than the national figure. This is an ironic situation given Mindanao’s reputation as the Philippines’ food basket, supplying 40 percent of the country’s food requirements and 30 percent of the national food trade.

Development Issues

Massive infrastructure projects in Mindanao generate social costs. Large-scale irrigation projects cause small farmers to lose substantial areas of their already small holdings. Site selection takes place often without the participation of the affected population and, sometimes, the selected sites are wrongly identified as uninhabited lands.

Furthermore, tribal communities lose their ancestral lands and their cultural heritage. More often than not, compensation for the loss of lands is not given. But how does one compensate for the loss of cultural heritage? Disruptions of cultural and religious practices by hydroelectric projects have been denounced by Islamic communities around Lake Lanao.

Large-scale projects entail high construction and maintenance costs. And it has been shown that small irrigation systems and scaled-down hydroelectric units can do the job just as well with lower costs and less social displacements. Large irrigation projects are also major pollutants since several irrigation systems discharge their return flows to only one major river, thus depriving families living on river banks of safe water supply. In addition, huge dams cause reduced soil fertility.

The major industries in Mindanao are of the extractive type which exploit and deplete natural resources. The rate of depletion of forests and fishing grounds is alarming and unfortunate because these are, after all, renewable resources. On the other hand, industries dependent on non-renewable riches such as minerals pose long-term risks for their dependent workforce, once total depletion occurs. In the tuna fish sector, lack of supply sometimes forces canneries to import fish.

Dislocation and displacement has often accompanied the entry and expansion of corporate operations in Mindanao. Scores of tribal Filipinos and settler communities have also been dislocated by logging operations in northern and southern Mindanao. The expansion of pineapple production by Del Monte in Bukidnon has pushed local communities off their lands. Also in Bukidnon, ancestral lands belonging to Manobo communities have been grabbed by cattle ranchers who then sold the lands to the Bukidnon Sugar Corporation.

The extensive monocropping patterns of agribusiness corporations dependent on high levels of chemical applications cause depletion of soil nutrients. In the case of the banana and pineapple industries, it is feared that once their operations cease, the badly damaged soil would not be able to sustain any other crop for many years. The cultivation patterns of pineapple plantations erode the soil, adversely affecting neighboring farmlands.

Depletion of resources without adequate replenishment measures ultimately damages the environment. Periodic flooding in logged-over areas in Northern Mindanao causes deaths and render thousands homeless. Extensive use of chemicals in farms disturbs the ecological balance in the area. Pineapple plantations encroach into watershed areas “causing substantial damage due to floods,” and small farmers complain about “the massive land destruction caused by floods from plantation areas during the rainy season.” Northern Mindanao’s coastal industrial belt, which includes cement factories, chemical plants, mineral processing factories and coconut processing plants, has been a major source of pollution.

Extensive use of agricultural chemicals by agribusiness operations also poses health hazards. Banana workers are endangered by exposure to harmful chemicals as plantation owners often do not institute health and safety measures, and doctors and nurses at these farms are not trained in occupational safety methods. There are thousands of victims of pesticide poisoning in the plantations. Aerial spraying of pesticides by banana companies has become a major issue in the area.

Most industries in Mindanao are export-oriented, dependent on the vagaries of international trade over which local producers have no control as the products they export are of low value added and do not fetch premium prices. Price instability and uncertainty thus affect Mindanao products such as coconuts, wood products, bananas, pineapples, minerals and fish. In the pursuit of the volatile export market, local needs are sacrificed. In the case of the fishing industry, the growth of an export sector has raised the prices of fish in the local market and put it beyond the reach of poor families.

Despite the expansion of economic activities in Mindanao, the southern economy has remained largely underdeveloped with features characteristic of a dependent type of capitalism. The emphasis on exports and TNC dominance has stunted local initiatives for developing an economic base with a higher level and quality of processing and manufacturing.

Processing activities have not gone beyond preliminary manufacturing stages and center on export-oriented goods. The wood industry, one of the oldest sectors, remains dependent on the intermediate processing of logs and lumber into plywood and veneer. Import dependence also characterizes a large number of these industries. The export fruit sector depends on the import of expensive chemical inputs to maintain high production levels. The Kawasaki sintered-ore plant imports almost all of its raw materials of iron ore and coke. The exceptions are agricultural and fish processing but being food products, their net value added is relatively low. The economic underdevelopment of Mindanao would explain its low share of the country’s gross domestic product.

Wealth Transfers and Internal Colonialism

There is no doubt that large amounts of wealth have been created from Mindanao’s abundant resources. Where all this wealth goes can be traced to the pattern of income distribution among different social classes and regions in Mindanao, the uneven development of the country’s regions and the relations of dependency between countries of different states of development.

In the first place, in Mindanao’s industries, the owners of the means of production capture a disproportionately larger share of the surplus than the workers while granting the latter less than a living wage. Second, within Mindanao itself, the more affluent regions, i.e., Davao and Northern Mindanao, take in a greater share of the income. Thirdly, the Mindanao regions are being drained of incomes by more developed northern regions. Fourthly, on the international plane, and as a result of the dominant role of transnational corporations in virtually every aspect of the various industries in Mindanao, wealth and resource transfers also occur in the direction of the developed economies of the world.

Internal colonialism theory describes and analyzes “the distribution of power and advantage within states” between a center and a periphery …where economic resources and power are concentrated at the center, to the advantage of which the periphery is subordinated.”5

This situation is clearly evident in the Mindanao case. The data show how large volumes of copra from Mindanao farms are shipped to Cebu and Manila and fish products caught in Mindanao waters are unloaded in Manila and Iloilo ports. Corporations operating in Mindanao usually have their main offices in Metro Manila, where they pay their taxes, thus depriving local governments of revenue. Internal colonialism would explain why, despite the presence of massive government projects and highly profitable industries, the Mindanao regions remain poor and deprived.

Conclusion

Mindanao has been the object of relentless economic exploitation since the turn of the 20th century. This process has produced immeasurable wealth and riches for a few mostly non-Mindanaoan firms and individuals. But it has also generated poverty and social marginalization for its working population, whether Moro, Lumad, or working class Christian settlers. Furthermore, its natural resources are being depleted at an uncontrollable pace stoking fears of an ecological backlash.

In the meantime, the Manila government is bent on accelerating the same age-old patterns of inequitable growth that have long deprived Mindanaoans of their just share of the economic surplus. The country’s leaders must initiate a process of constructing a new development paradigm for Mindanao that will finally render social and economic justice for Mindanao’s peoples. The grim alternative will be the continuation of the cycle of violence and warfare that have long characterized the southern Philippines.

__________

The author is a professor of Asian Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman.

This essay is based on a presentation made at the UP Academic Congress, Malcolm Hall, University of the Philippines Diliman, 2 February 2010. It is an essay version of a paper revised and updated from two previous studies by the author: “The Political Economy of Mindanao: An Overview” in Mark Turner, et al (eds), Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise(Quezon City: New Day Publishers) 1992 and “Mindanao Briefing Paper” (2007) a research report submitted to the Consuelo Foundation. For the updated data, the research assistance of Sascha Gallardo is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1 Medium Term Philippine Development Plan 2004-2010, p. 34.

2 Riza T. Olchondra, “Sumitomo to invest $2.1B in Surigao mine project,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 16 February 2010, p. B5.

3 The data on TNCs in Mindanao are based on studies conducted in the 1980s and need to be updated for changes that have taken place, particularly in the plantations which have since been placed under the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. The general picture, however, remains valid.

4 Bernard Allauigan, “New Mindanao development body gains ground,” Business World, 19 January 2010 and Tina Arceo-Dumlao, “Fulfilling the promise of growth in Mindanao,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 24 January 2010.

5 Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism (London, 1975). See also David Brown, The State and Ethnic Politics in South-East Asia (Routledge, 1994) pp. 158-205.

I will not add to the remarkable details and lucid insights assembled in the analysis of my mentor, Mr. Pat Diaz. What I will do is to view the problem from another angle.

In the first place I ask the question. Is it the Moro problem we are trying to solve? Or the GRP problem?

If it is the Moro problem, it has been with us since 1968, almost 42 two years to date.

A series of major Moro organizations articulated Moro aspirations. The Muslim Independence Movement (MIM) said it wanted to put up an Islamic State in predominantly Muslim areas of Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan (Minsupala). President Ferdinand Marcos responded by appointing its leader, former Cotabato Governor Datu Udtog Matalam, as presidential adviser on Muslim affairs. The organization died but the seed had been sown.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) emerged immediately after and loudly proclaimed the birth of the Bangsamoro, and their intent to liberate the Bangsamoro from the clutches of Philippine colonialism and establish a Bangsamoro Republic in Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan, their ancestral homeland. The war netted more than 100,000 lives and cost the government more than seventy billion pesos in combat expenses alone. The GRP-MNLF peace negotiations that followed produced the Tripoli Agreement which established the Autonomous Region for the Muslims of Southern Philippines. It took 20 years before the two parties could agree on how to implement. Finally in 1996, they signed the Final Peace Agreement on the Implementation of the Tripoli Agreement, but 13 years have passed and the government has yet to fully implement its provisions. And the government admits it.

Perceiving that the Bangsamoro cause has been compromised, the MILF refused to accept the 1996 agreement and announced its resumption of the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination. From January 1997 to the present, two big events were happening at the same, an active war in 13 provinces of Mindanao-Sulu Archipelago and a peace negotiation. Over the years the MILF has narrowed down its pursuit to the creation of a political entity somewhere in between the present autonomy and independence and very much an integral part of the Republic of the Philippines.

So, if I may reiterate, what is the GRP problem?

Since the time of President Marcos, from the first negotiating panel to the 18th, yes, Chairman Rafael Seguis is the 18th panel chair on the government side, the GRP position has been consistent: to uphold national sovereignty and the integrity of the Philippine territory; it agreed to negotiate but only within the framework of the Philippine constitution. The constitutional part became more specific in Article X of the 1987 Constitution. But the Moro problem remains unsolved.

This was why the Tripoli Agreement was acceptable to the GRP. It is new in Philippine political history, has 16 paragraphs and paragraph 16 says that the entire agreement was to be implemented in accordance with constitutional processes. It took 20 years for the two parties to agree on what that exactly means. But despite the 1996 accord, the GRP seems hesitant to fully implement it.

Thoughtful military officers who have fought in the Moro front since they were junior officers claim that the military has fought for 40 years; between 100,000 to 120,000 lives have perished, 50 percent were MNLF, 30 percent were AFP, and 20 percent were civilians; Php 73 billion have been spent in combat expenses alone. But the Moro problem is still there very much alive and kicking. It is obvious to them the war is not the answer.

In the negotiation front, the constitution is the main GRP framework for solution. The GRP is on its 18th peace panel chair and the same framework has been used. This is perfectly understandable. Every government employee as a matter of fact must swear to uphold the constitution as soon as he or she joins government service. How much more peace panel members who represent the republic through the office of the President. Still the Moro problem remains. Can we also say the constitutional solution is faulty?

It might help clarify a number of things if we review a series of interrelated events in Mindanao history.

The first event is the Treaty of Paris. Every Bangsamoro peace panel, whether MNLF or MILF, claims that they have never been colonized by the Spaniards but the Spaniards included them in their cession of the Philippines to the United States without their plebiscitary consent.

As a Mindanao historian who has done more than my share of historical research I know this to be true. As an assertion of our Filipino point of view, I should add that at the time of the Treaty of Paris, December 1898, it is doubtful if there was any part of the Philippines that Spain owned and could cede to the United States because the Filipino revolutionary leaders had declared Philippine independence in June of the same year.

The Cordillera was one territory she never colonized; the same may be said of Lumad communities which retained their independence through avoidance of contact with the Spanish forces. So, it is not only the Bangsamoro who should complain that they were never asked whether or not they wished their territory to be part of the Philippines; the Filipinos, too, and the Cordillerans and the Lumad – colonizers do not ask colonial victims for their consent. All this, of course, becomes moot and academic because we lost in the war against the Americans. As a consequence, we all became colonial subjects of America, in a colony they now called the Philippine Islands.

The second event is the marginalization of the indigenous Lumad and Moro communities of Mindanao starting with the American institutionalization of the ownership and disposition land through the imposition of the regalian doctrine and the torrens system. This means that the United States has become the owner of the new Philippine colony and reserves the right to pass laws to dispose of the land to its inhabitants. The US colonial government started the process by passing a law declaring as null and void all land grants made by traditional leaders if made without government consent.

At that point, 1903, no such traditional land grant had government consent. The legislative mill then churned out the public land laws and implemented the government resettlement program . Vast territories were opened for resettlement from north to south of the archipelago. This was how Filipino settlers from Luzon and the Visayas inundated Mindanao. In less than sixty years from the inauguration of the agricultural colonies in Cotabato in 1913 to 1970, the process displaced the Lumad and Moro communities from their traditional territories. And this was all legal, mostly at least, executed by government with government support.

Colonial government, and subsequently the Philippine government created the very conditions that marginalized the native Lumads and Moros in their own lands. The settlers who took part in the program unwittingly also contributed to this marginalization. So, now we have the Moro problem. And the Lumad problem. Threatened with extinction and aspiring to survive with dignity , both must now assert their right to self-determination within their respective ancestral domains.

The third event is the grant of independence to the Republic of the Philippines in July 1946. Filipino political leaders were responsible for the series of events that led to the Jones law in 1916, the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 and the Treaty of General Relations in 1946 which recognized the grant of independence. The 1935 Constitution defines Philippine national territory in Article I, Sec. 1, as follows:

“The Philippines comprises all the territory ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris concluded between the United States and Spain on the tenth day of December, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, the limits which are set forth in Article III of said treaty, together with all the islands embraced in the treaty concluded at Washington between the United States and Spain on the seventh day of November, nineteen hundred, and the treaty concluded between the United States and Great Britain on the second day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty, and all territory over which the present Government of the Philippine Islands exercises jurisdiction.”

Notice that this constitution, as does the 1987 constitution, upholds the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris. Our sovereign republic is a direct product of colonial logic. The official line of the United States government was that there were no nations here (in the Philippine Islands), only different tribes fighting one another. But somewhere along the way, American officials made sure that the Sultan of Sulu waived his sovereign powers in favor of the United States of American. So, in the end, when it granted independence it was only to one Republic of the Philippines whose sovereign people are called Filipinos.

The Bangsamoro Struggle for self-determination

The Bangsamoro leaders’ political position challenges the very foundations of our present sovereign state. There is no question about this. And to defend national sovereignty and maintain the integrity of national territory, every government of the republic must uphold the constitution. And in any political negotiation it conducts with the MNLF or the MILF it is duty-bound to use the constitution as it guide and framework. But this is the very constitution that upholds the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris! This is the very constitution that upholds the primacy of colonial logic in the formation of our Philippine republic. This is the very same logic that led to the marginalization of the indigenous peoples of Mindanao. And now, is the government saying that we should use the same tool and the same colonial logic to correct the historical injustice perpetrated upon the Bangsamoro and the Lumad?

If we uphold the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris through our constitution, must we also de-legitimize the celebration of our national independence on June 12, 1898? If we do, this will in effect render meaningless President Diosdado Macapagal’s order to move celebration of independence from July 4 to June 12.

If we uphold the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris through our constitution, are we not in fact upholding colonial principles against democratic principles?

To solve the Bangsamoro problem, it seems that we have to make a number of major decisions. One, we have to complete the decolonization of the country and declare the Treaty of Paris as a colonial legacy that must go. Two, uphold the legitimacy of the Sultanates of Sulu, Sultanates of Maguindanao as de facto states in their own right at the time of the Treaty of Paris. Three, reorganize the Philippine republic on the basis of consent of the governed. Needless to say, we have to adopt a new constitution.

(Prof. Rudy Buhay Rodil was vice chair of the government peace panel that negotiated with the MILF until the MOA-AD of 2008. Previous to that, the Mindanao historian and history professor, an expert on Moro and Lumad histories, was a member of the GRP peace panel that negotiated and forged an agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) from 1992 to 1996. Before becoming a panel member, Mr. Rodil was a member of the Regional Consultative Commission that drafted the Organic Act of Muslim Mindanao).

I have observed the power of the Conscience Driven elections, when a candidate driven by his conscience to run to change society, as well as concience electorates who vote people who should govern and change the system and actively guard the votes and ensure that their candidate wins.

A lot of historic landmark people won thru this method.and History was the judge if they accepted and fulfilled their mandate accrodingly.
We hope that the next Moro senatorial aspirant is one driven by his conscience to trully serve his constituents and push to transform the system, or this will be another lame and fruitless electoral excercise getting a Moro to run for Senate and throw away people’s money

We did not start this conflict in any way. And yet you scorn us and attack us. Perhaps it is because you have read our history from the eyes and the pens of your historians. Our history is older, much older than yours. And if you could only see it through our own eyes, you would understand. But you do not, and perhaps you never will.

Before your nation was born, we already had our own sovereignty in Mindanao. We had lived peacefully with honor, prosperity and dignity and we had lived in peaceful coexistence with others of different cultures and beliefs within this land. This was before the Spaniards came to colonize you. This was before the Spaniards sold you – and us too, though without our knowledge and consent – to the Americans.

When your people finally gained your independence from the Americans, we had already been doubtful that you would treat us and our ways with respect. Because for over three hundred years, the colonizers had not only converted you to their faith and their western ways, they had also used you as shock troops against us. Where before their arrival, we had shared relations of amity and commerce and perhaps some history as well, now after over three hundred years of fighting one another, you with all your hate and enmity against my people, had been given the opportunity to govern us against our will.

And what have you done since that independence? You continued what the colonizers had done to us. You claim us to be part of your citizenry, yet you mock our ways, thinking our ways are backward and wrong and that yours are right. You forced us to follow your laws. You treated us as second class citizens. Even as savages. You claimed your prize for the three hundred years of servitude as shock troops of your colonizers and, through your laws, divested us of our ancestral lands. And when we became fed up and our braver brethren took up arms to make our point, you were contemptuous and assaulted us at every opportunity given to you. You knew that if you could force us to surrender, you could take all the natural riches underneath our ancestral lands for your own, in addition to the lands you have already taken away from us, either by force, deceit, or stealth. Because you have already needlessly wasted and squandered what little resources your lands have had before.

You are up in arms when only one of you is injured or killed by one of us. It is sensationalized on television. Yet you remain silent after millions of us have been displaced, tens of thousands left dying of disease and hunger, and hundreds killed by your army, your police and your vigilantes. We are lucky if we find an article about this on the last page of one of your little known tabloids. You have harmed our old folk, our women, and our children. You have not only marginalized us, you have also disenfranchised us and displaced us, socially, politically, culturally and economically. You have made us poor and weak. All this because we are different.

What we do is no different from what you do. We talk and laugh. We complain about work. We bleed when we are injured. And we wonder about growing old. We talk about our families and we worry about the future. And we cry with each other when things seem hopeless. All of the things you do with each other, that is also what we do. And for that we are called deviants, criminals, secessionists, even terrorists, and then are made to suffer.

What right do you have to make us suffer like this? What right do you have to change us? What makes you think you can dictate how we live our lives?

I and my people desire no rancor against you or anyone. We only aspire to live in peace, dignity, honor, and prosperity within our homeland — The Bangsamoro Homeland — or what little remains of it we can genuinely reclaim from you, anyway. We only seek to regain the things that your people and your governments, past and present, have taken away from us. We only seek to enjoy our right to self-determination and to live our way of life according to our beliefs, not according to yours. That is our rightful due.

You are the stronger “other”. If you wish to talk of peace, look through the lens of justice and of our history. If you wish to talk of peace, do not play double-talk, semantics, or word calisthenics. And if you wish to talk of peace, do not hold a sword behind your back. That simply will not do. We were not born yesterday.

I am a Moro. And I am proud to be a Moro. Deal with it, or leave me alone.

(Tommy Pangcoga is the Training and Project Development Officer and a member of the Western Mindanao Cluster Team of the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society, Inc. CBCS’ main office is in Cotabato City).

My son couldnt digest the idea. Its hard explaining abstract concepts to a five year old kid. But he can accept the fact he was born a Muslim.

I remember that my Uncles in Basilan and Curuan would say that Zamboanga City and Basilan was actually sparsely populated and that you would hardly see people around. My other Moro Lola told me that most of the land around in the 60′s were inhabited by Moros (although it was sparsely populated then.).

When people think of Mindanao, the imagine a huge percentage of it being occuppied by Muslims and their Lumad kin. However on the ground, you will see exactly the opposite. Historical facts may say so, but statistical facts put Muslims at 30% in Mindanao. Why is this so?

Wars, famine,militarization and harassment has led to a variety of scenarios that led to a Moro diaspora. My older son Hydar is asking why am I here in Manila? I jokingly tell him “Tinanan ako ng Nanay mo!”. But yes, a lot of factors led Muslims in the south to migrate and seek greener pastures away from Mindano. I couldnt tell my son, that although my cousins who visit us would tell stories of Muslim grandeur in Mindanao, and the glory that it was, because even my own cousins feel that there is hardly a place to return to… with all the lands and cities being populated by Christians down south, I can never explain to my children while they are still  young “why there are more Christians than Muslims in Mindanao”.

We know for a fact that by these time, Politicos have already mapped out the terrain, making shady deals, worshipping lizards, hanging Tarzans and even allowing themselves TV coverage, praying in Quiapo. WOW!

But for the moment before we start our sharp pen aiming for their necks let us have a discourse on what the people of Mindanao would expect.

I would like to pose a question, Is the Moro Vote significant to a 2010 presidential candidate?

Although we know that TEAM GLORIA relies much on central mindanao votes previously and that all political operators submerge themselves in the cash-strapped ARMM and Moro dominated provinces, little is there any news of any presidentiable trying to actually win the hearts and minds of the Moros. I dont mind asking if the ARMM people still aim to “vote” again for another administration candidate. But perhaps a genuine discourse on the Mindanao Issue can guarantee, the actual votes being cast for “Fulan” (presidentiable). Thinsg like, do you really like to have a federal form of government? would Fulan like to have another form of MOA AD signed? would he allow the setup of a government model simmilar to the federation of malaysian states? would he allow again malaysia to assist him in negotiating Peace, or allow China to help. Or Allow Barack Obama to help in establishing lasting peace in Mindanao. Your guess is as good as mine for Fulan Bin Fulan.

 
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.  

In a sense it was a pyrrhic victory for it gave the impression that a negotiated peace settlement is unfeasible, further pushing those in the jungles of Mindanao to pursue their armed struggle as the only way of, paradoxically, achieving peace.  

With the escalating conflict in Central Mindanao which is displacing close to half a million civilians, it is important to understand the implication of the Supreme Court decision. The ruling must be viewed not as a wall that bars dialogue but rather as guidance to a better and peaceful settlement.  

Injustice: root cause of the Mindanao problem 

In order to understand the issue on the MOA-AD, it is important to have a working background of the Mindanao problem. It will be biased, however, if it is based on the perspective of a Moro. Thus, a re-statement of points made by Archbishop Orlando Quevedo (Archbishop Quevedo), the former two-term President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and current Sec. Gen. of the Asian Bishops’ Conference, during the 27th General Assembly of the Bishops’ Businessmen’s Conference in Taguig, Metro Manila, on July 8, 2008 entitled, “Injustic: root cause of the Mindanao problem,” shall be more credible. 

He argued that the roots of the problem in Mindanao are due to three injustices, namely, against: (1) The Moro identity; (2) The Moro sovereignty; and, (3) The Moro integral development.  

The injustices against the Moro identity were the centuries of effort to “subjugate, assimilate and integrate the Bangsamoro without regard to their historical and cultural make-up, which is an injustice to the Bangsamoros’ religious, cultural and political identity.”  

As to the second, Archbishop Quevedo considered “a fundamental injustice,” the loss of sovereignty of the Moro which it defended for three centuries, only to be gradually lost to the US and the Philippine government. 

Lastly, with regard to the injustices against the Moro integral development,  “with the loss of political sovereignty came the loss of great chunks of Moro ancestral lands by legal enactments” of the government during those times. “The loss of land was compounded by government neglect of the Moro right to integral development. In all dimensions of human development, political, economic, educational, and cultural, the Moro population continues to lag far behind its Christian Filipino counterparts.”  

As the quest for justice is the spirit of the MOA, its basic element is the clamor for equality between the majority Christian citizens and the minority Muslims in the Philippines – equality in terms of integral development. Is there equality when the Bangsamoro people live with human development index (HDI) equal to the poorest countries in Africa, like Congro and Ethiopia? The HDI what the United Nations use to collectively measure standard of living, education, health, security, access and opportunity. Where is equality when people in ARMM, in general, has a life expectancy 20 years lower than the people in the rest of the country? Can there be equality when a US-AID study recently showed that the english comprehension of a significant number of teachers in ARMM are equal to a grade 4 pupil in Manila? Is there equality when a Tabang Mindanao study in 2006 showed that more than 90% of the people in Basilan, Sulu & Tawi-Tawi do not have access to potable drinking water?  

Some will dismiss this by putting all the blame on the Moros. Yet, who has the political and economic control in this country that can allocate resources and can have the political will to address major challenges? Sadly, the only consistent resource regularly sent to ARMM  are bombs and bullets. 

Economics Nobel price winner Amartya Sen, in his book, “Development as Freedom” expanded the definition of development. From simply a measure of income he included human capabilities. He calls this the “substantive human freedom.” In essence, he said that a people whose capabilities are not harnessed and developed are not free. In other words, a person whose mind, faculties, talents, gifts and capabilities are not developed and utilised are trapped in a poverty worst than the lack of money.  

SMART CEO Manny Pangilinan during a Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) anniversary said that the ARMM is beset by the worst poverty of all, the “Poverty of Capacity.” Why? Because it constrains people to the point of being unable to even help themselves. A people who is blindfolded with ignorance and shackled with poverty are no worse than prisoners in a cell. If we really belong to one Nation, under one flag, why do we let more than four million people, who all belong to the minority Muslim ethnic groups, live as prisoners of ignorance, poverty and neglect? 

These perspectives have become the generally acceptable premise for grievances and sentiments that must be addressed by the present Administration and the Filipino people in general. This search for redress is, therefore, the spirit of the MOA-AD.  

Why the Supreme Court declared the MOA-AD unconstitutional 

If the quest for a solution to the injustices is the spirit of the MOA-AD, then that answer was not barred after all by the Supreme Court. Instead, what had only been declared unconstitutional was the means in arriving at such end as founded on five main grounds, to wit:  

(1) That no consultation was made on an issue that affects significantly a large territory and population;  

(2) That the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) had provided a clear procedure on how ancestral land may be granted to indigenous peoples and the Executive Branch does not have the power to unilaterally supersede a procedure mandated by law;  

(3) That it would have been a binding international agreement that would compel the Philippines to support the right to self-determination of the Bangsamoro people;  

(4) That the Executive Branch cannot guarantee that the Constitution will conform with the MOA; and, 

(5) The concept of “Associative” relationship is a “transition point to independence” which threatens the territorial integrity of the Country. 

1. Violation on the peoples right to information

Section 7 Article III of the Philippine Constitution recognizes ”the right of the people to information on matters of public concern.” The Local Government Code of 1991 further “require all national agencies to conduct periodic consultations with appropriate local government units before any program is implemented in their respective jurisdictions.” Yet, in this matter that is definitely of public concern, no consultation nor public information was made. Thus, the Supreme Court declared that the government negotiators abused their discretion by not informing and consulting the people most affected by the proposed policies, as mandated by law. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court did not forbid the Executive branch from proposing peace solutions. It merely slammed the deceptive secrecy in the drafting of the peace agreement.  

An overview of the petitions will show that the primary relief sought was the exclusion of their territory in the proposed BJE. It is evident, therefore, that the greatest fear of the MOA-AD oppositionists is to be under a proposed Bangsamoro government, whose present condition in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is far from encouraging. Statistics say that it has the highest poverty incidence, the lowest access to all government services, and the poorest governance indicators.  

Hence, this challenge must first be addressed prior to any contemplated expansion. ARMM should first be made the model region in the country not necessarily in economic prosperity but even just in the transformation from “governance of the guns” to good governance. The success of “internal self determination” must first be proved with an improved bureaucratic and service delivery system in ARMM before other people would realistically be expected to say “yes” to a plebiscite to be part of it. 

2. The IPRA has its own procedure that must be followed

The MOA-AD had envisaged “ancestral domain” to be given by virtue of an executive agreement. The Supreme Court declared it as unlawful since it is contrary to the procedure laid out by the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act.  The law requires a process of delineation, presentation of proof, investigation and approval of by the National Council of Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and due notice. 

In spite of this, Father Joaquin Bernas, S.J. believes that an executive agreement is no longer necessary to grant the Moros their Ancestral Land as the IPRA law may suffice.  

Flashing back to a hundred years ago, the Americans, after purchasing the Philippine Islands were actually “shocked” by the “small dots” of territory that Spain controlled in Mindanao.  However, the government declared all lands without Torrence titles issued by the Spaniards as public lands. With almost all Moro land not registered with the Spaniards against whom they had fought for more than three centuries and to whom they did not surrender their sovereignty, almost all Moro lands in Mindanao were declared public property. Now, what are left to the Moros are the small islands of the Sulu archipelago, the outskirts of the Lanao Lake, and the volatile plains of Maguindanao.  

It is true. This past historical injustices that were allowed by the laws then could not be corrected by another injustice to the present generations who now occupy the lands. However, there are still thousands of hectares that remain as public property that may be given to the Moros thru the issuance of Ancestral Land titles. These may still be granted to correct a historical wrong.  

The Subanon tribe, with a national indigenous peoples survey estimating their population at 90,000, is currently processing an application for 15,000 hectares of Ancestral Land title in Zamboanga Peninsula. If they can forward a claim, then why can’t the more than 4.3 million Muslims in the Philippines apply and reclaim some of the Ancestral land “legacies” that Moro ancestors had defended and fought for three centuries?  

It is a popular belief by the public that the MOA-AD will grant Ancestral Land titles even if it is already under private ownership. This is not true. What the MILF wants to take back are those public lands that remain unused, unutilized, or at least uninhabited. Also, Ancestral land titles awarded by the IPRA cover lands that are State-owned and do not include areas already owned by private individuals. In fact, according to the NCIP, of the 15,000 applied for by the Subanon tribe, only 9,000 may actually be awarded since the rest are already of private ownership. It is clear then that the law ensures that land already owned by its citizens are protected. This may also give an insight that the individual tribes of the Moro must apply to the IPRA to avoid the confusion since the term Bangsamoro is defined differently by the ARMM organic act compared with the proposed MOA. This may also hasten the delineation between the Ancestral domain of different tribes considered under the term Bangsamoro. 

The Supreme Court noted further that there is a significant difference though with Ancestral Domain as proposed in the MOA and Ancestral Land as defined in the IPRA. The former involves more control over the resources found in the land while the later is simply a land title as evidence of ownership. Nonetheless, since the present law already grants Ancestral Land titles, the Moro indigenous people must not wait for another decade to apply. By the time another peace agreement is signed, all areas may have either been converted to private land or granted as Ancestral land to other indigenous groups. 

Basically, the Supreme Court did not declare that the Moros are not entitled to their Ancestral Land. The Court simply stated that there is a procedure that must be followed based on the existing law.  

3. It may have been a binding International obligation

Justice Adolfo Azcuna warned that the MOA-AD “would have provided a basis for a suit in an international court ”since the Philippines made a unilateral declaration before representatives of the international community.” Moreover, since international law is not limited by precedence, the MILF GRP MOA may have become a landmark case that would have compelled the Philippines to enforce the agreement. 

However, even without the MOA, there is now an international customary law that supports the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples. Last September 13, 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples through General Assembly Resolution 61/295. The Philippine government was one of the 142 countries that signed the declaration. Article 3 of the declaration states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Furthermore Article 26 states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.” 

Along this line, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states that the Philippines “adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land.” This makes the UN Declaration part of the laws of the Philippines. Furthermore, the doctrine of “pacta sunt servanda” in International law obliges the Philippines to “perform in good faith” such UN Declaration. This enjoins the country to continue searching for a remedy to the valid grievances of the Moros. Of course, democratic processes must be followed and proper consultations made, not only in the implementation, but to include the conceptualisation process. 

4. The Executive branch cannot guarantee the Constitution to conform with the MOA 

Justice Ruben Reyes said that the Executive Department went beyond its powers in unilaterally guaranteeing an amendment to the Constitution to conform with the MOA-AD. Such power, as Justice Antonio Carpio also contended, belongs to Congress and the People. On the other hand, Justice Minita Chico-Nazario deemed it within the powers of the Executive to offer solutions beyond what the present constitution allows when circumstances of ”internal conflict” justifies. Nonetheless, the majority of the SC Justices agreed that the Executive Department “gave a promise that it could not deliver.”  

The Supreme Court recognizes the power of amendment to the Constitution to reside with Congress and the people and not with the President. The Executive may recommend, but not guarantee, amendments. Thus, the peace process should change gear and direction and move towards the realization of the Federalism proposal. A charter change that will push for a federal-presidential government system with a regionalized senate will help the country decentralize political and economic power. Indirectly, this will move will give the Moro a more meaningful autonomy.  

Now is the time for a serious debate on this issue not only by the legislators, but by all stakeholders, especially the people. More importantly, the MNLF, MILF and other minority sectors who have issues should start preparing concrete proposals, conduct consultations and popularize their issues. At the end of the day, good ideas will just be thrown in the garbage bin if it does not get the acceptance of the leaders and general public.  

Only by long term comprehensive planning that engages all stakeholders can we truly arrive at a sustainable national roadmap. The case of the MOA may have been another product of disjointed planning where the left hand plans things that the right hand, and absurdly, even the “head”, does not know. Where else can you find a government that suddenly declares a MOA-AD as a solution then retracts a few weeks thereafter? Like a fickle, it suddenly reverses its statement. It announces that it will not sign it “in any form” and states that it will shift be changed to “community based consultation”, and, then, changes strategy yet again to a Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Rehabilitation (DDR) program. This clearly shows a lack of long term comprehensive agenda.  

Having three distinct plans with only a few weeks of intervals shows a total lack of deep understanding and political will to solve to address this national problem; but, the present administration should not totally be blamed. It is the system itself that makes political survival and post-administration security the number one priority of any president. 

5. The “Associative” relationship is a “transition to independence.”

The decision of the court stated “In international practice, the ‘associated state’ arrangement has usually been used as a transitional device of former colonies on their way to full independence.”   

As regards to the transition aspect, the “associated” relationship was used by the British government as a transitional phase for its former colonies, most of whom were members of the short lived West Indies Federation. As colonies of the British Crown, they were inevitably on the way towards independence due to the process of decolonization after World War II. The British government themselves had the political will to grant independence. Almost all countries held as colonies by Western and European countries have ever since been granted independence.  

In the case of the Philippines, political will for the dismemberment of the country is an unimaginable option. The GRP and MILF negotiators may not have intended the “associative” relationship as a jumping board for independence. In law, the nature of contracts are not only defined by what they are called but more importantly by the elements present. Moreover, the basic characteristics present in the “associative” system are also present in the Senate Joint Resolution No. 10 as endorsed by 16 senators this year. In fact, the much feared power of being able to demand independence in an “associative” BJE is also present in the Federal proposal. The Senate proposal gives a State the right to secede upon approval of two thirds of Congress voting separately. Also, the “associative” power of having State police while external defense rests with the “central government” is also present in the proposed Federal system. So is more power given with regard to control of natural resource and having foreign economic ties. In essence actually, the BJE is an empowered version of the Bangsamoro State proposed by the Senate. 

While the Supreme Court has “killed” the proposed MOA by the Executive Department, the “spirit” of the MOA is still proposed by the Legislative Branch in the Federal system of government proposal. It is just waiting for its time to come. The Supreme Court had declared that only the Legislature and the people are endowed with the power to change the Constitution. It is beyond the power of the Executive to transgress. But then again, if the Country will have a new Charter after the 2010 elections, then the Supreme Court will have a new frame of reference in declaring unconstitutionality. What may be unconstitutional today, may not necessarily be unconstitutional a few years from now.  

The spirit of the MOA-AD lives on 

In summary, the spirit of the MOA survived. The Court merely required consultation, the proper IPRA procedures and restrained the President from giving promises it cannot keep. It also identified the Legislative and the people as the ones with the real power to give what the spirit of the MOA seeks. Therefore, the peace process should focus on being able to convince the legislative branch of government and the people to co-own aspects of the MOA that can lawfully be incorporated during the Charter Change.  

The Supreme Court decision can be viewed “as a light that shows the right way” instead of being perceived as the “executioner” of the peace process. With this decision, where does the path to peace go? The practical and feasible way is the Federal system of government proposal. Much of the points raised in the MOA can be accommodated in the Federal concept. The aspect on Ancestral domain, may at this point be pushed through the IPRA law.  

The urgent and important issue that must be addressed by the peace process, the proposed federal government or the present Administration is the problem of education in ARMM. Since education is the greatest equalizer amidst poverty, an “intensive-care” approach should be made in rehabilitating the educational system of ARMM. The government must elevate the principle of “Parens Patriae” to apply to the region and take responsibility over the deteriorating quality of education in ARMM which is debilitating the next Moro generations. 

According to Al Jazeera news channel, the father of President Barrack Hussein Obama was born and raised in one of the poorest communities in Africa, with no access to electricity and television. Since his grandmother and most of his relatives in Kenya are Muslims, he faced a double edged prejudice – first, as an African-American and second being associated to Muslims. Yet in spite of these negative stereotypes and being part of the minority, it was simply quality education that empowered the son of a poor African-American to become the most influential man on earth today. More amazing is that, it can happen in one generation. The fact that Obama got elected as President of the US shows that there is hope for change in this world. The spirit of change, emanating from the most powerful country in the world, may hopefully also spark the momentum of change in our Country. 

The aborted MOA signing should be taken as a positive change in the long history of war the Philippines. A recognized revolutionary armed group is willing have a paradigm shift to seriously believe in a negotiated agreement instead of an armed struggle. Although the GRP negotiators may be scolded for making gross mistakes, the MILF should still be given credit for believing in the democratic process. The burden of being within the bounds of the laws rested on the government and not with the MILF. Thus, the peace process should continue. But a real peace process must involve the government as a whole and its people.  

The fear of having part of the country secede, should be met with sincere effort to address the root causes that divide the country. Fear and military force should not be the iron chain that keeps this country together. It should be the universal love by the Country to all its citizens no matter what religion, ethnicity, and geographic location. The Moro people must be given a chance to be equal with his fellow Filipinos in all aspects:  in practice and not just in law – in reality and not just in the ideal sense. 

At the end of the day, the spirit of the MOA-AD will continue to find a way to be realized. The MOA proposal may have been stopped on its tracks by the Supreme Court, but the grievances and injustices that drove it still exist. Hence, as long as the spirit of the MOA-AD, which Archbishop Quevedo divided into three injustices, lives on and the gross inequality between the minority and majority remains, then there will always be a clamor for change and justice.  

The interconnected problems of wars, poverty and illiteracy are merely symptoms of deeper causes such as the aforementioned injustices. Only by addressing these injustices can we stop the vicious cycle of conflict that hampers development. While there are those who advocate justice by democratic means, most of them simply fall on deaf ears or are silenced. Consequently, only those who advocate with guns are heard. Thereafter, the government misinterprets this as purely a security problem which can only be resolved by “an all out war.” However, a military solution is only palliative in nature and will never address the issues raised nor solve the problem. If only the hundreds of billions of pesos spent on war is used to address the injustice to the Moro integral development, perhaps peace would be more within reach. 

Change and justice will never be achieved by having more blood spilled on the fertile lands of Mindanao, but by the ink of the pen on paper. In fact, Muslims are taught that “the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr.” Undeniably, as the beginning of the injustice started with unjust laws and executive policies a century ago, justice can only be institutionalized by incorporating affirmative action into our Constitution, statutes and jurisprudence.  

More than quarter of a million people have already died due to the Mindanao conflict in the last five decades. How many more people must die by the bullets and bombs for a cause that only a pen can resolve? 

—
Comments regarding this article may be emailed to donloong@yahoo.com 

[Engr. Don Mustapha Arbison Loong is the President of WMSU Law Students’ Association, the former Provincial Administrator of Sulu, a US State Dept. International Visitor Alumni, a British Chevening Fellow to Bradford University, UK, an AIM Bridging Leadership Fellow, a former delegate to the South East Asian Conflict Studies Network in Thailand, an Outwardbound Global Leader to the peak Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, Africa, and the President of the Movement for Economic Development in Sulu Foundation, Inc. He is also one of the founding co-convenors of the Young Moro Professionals Network]

Dear All,

We don’t have money to further enrich the national dailies with a whole page AD.  So I do have to settle for alternative media prints “a la pobre”.  But it has the benefit of global interconnectedness.  Here’s my initial salvo to Frank’s ADS on MOA-AD.  I will elaborate my commentary much later.  For the sake of a broader debate, please help circulate this Open Letter on the MOA-AD.

Yours truly,
Datu Michael O. Mastura

An Open Letter
24 August 2008

My reply email was interrupted by a brownout amidst my composing thoughts I wanted to convey to our readers at the Mindanews website besides Luwaran website.  Hopefully someone from the editorial box of the national dailies (in particular PDI) will pick as news items warranting some space the legal views of lawyers (like me) who represent MILF as the real Party in interest across the GRP-MILF negotiating table.

The series of full page ADS in PDI 08/22/08 and PD 08/23/08 of former senate president Frank M. Drilon simplify and focus on perceived infringements to the 1987 Constitution.  Those two Q & A pages make up powerful arguments for the continuing extension of what I call the “colonisibility status” of the Bangsamoro people, posing the matter of immediate infringement as a danger.

If we think rationally out of the maddening reactive anti-Moro sentiments generated by opinion-editorials and hardly balanced media coverage of the Government-MILF peace process, it makes me reflect the ‘triumph of diplomacy’ in our era of postmodern states. [N. B. this phrase is taken from the title of a book on how the Moro rulers of the Magindanaw sultanate and the Sulu sultanate had survived the era of treaty-making with Spain, an imperial power, and Holland, a commercial power, of the time and the United States up to 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson enunciated seminal ideas of the right to self determination.] Thus, there is no occasion to speak of Balkanization of this ungovernable part of the region.

Now the Country (el Pais)—Las Islas Filipinas—has just awakened to the depth of the Bangsamoro legitimate GRIEVANCES.  Instead of killing the ideas—the CAUSE (or SABAB)—embodied in the MOA-AD, the representatives of Government must face up to the Agreed Text as STATECRAFT.  It vindicates the JUSTNESS of the ORIGINAL POSITIONS to fix in constitutional construct. Traditional Moro negri (statehood) ‘earned sovereignty’ is encapsulated by the Republic in its present form and structure as an autonomous entity presently in existence before the family of nations since 1946.

Spokespersons for that Sovereign state called the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) configure their constituencies into a political community.  Such an assumption neglects a number of contested constitutional issues before the negotiating table.

What is the “territorial integrity” of the Philippines? When reduced to geographic maps with proper technical coordinates, the fundamental question we formally raised at the GRP-MILF Talks are as follows:

1. Is the present national territorial delimitation based on the Treaty of Paris of 10 December 1898 as corrected by the Treaty of Washington of 7 November 1900 and the treaty between the United States and England on 2 January 1930? Or,
2. Is it the current technical description of the archipelagic doctrine based on R.A. 3046 of 1961, as amended by R.A 5446 of 1968 as a system of straight baselines, its negotiating position on boundary delimitations under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention?

An act of statesmanship is to ‘write sovereignty’ in terms of the ‘associative ties’ envisaged in the MOA-AD.  We cannot proceed with a serious debate as if the meaning of sovereignty were stable; for, in reality, not one but various forms of sovereign statehood exist. There’s no confusing justice with legitimacy for workable arrangements here.  However, there’s a truncated understanding of sovereignty when 12 June 1898 was fixed by law as an episodic event, following the inauguration of Philippine independence on 4 July 1946. Article 1 of Title I of the Malolos Constitution succinctly reads: “The political association of all the Filipinos constitutes a nation, whose state is called the Philippine Republic”.  At that point in time, the Bangsamoro homeland was not a part of the whole Country, for as a matter of historical narrative that Republic invited the Sultan of Sulu and the Sultan of Magindanaw to federate with it.

What matters for us present generation of patriots is that Driion’s half-a-million-worth of PDI ADS highlights the absolute necessity for a change in the first principles of the unitary system. How do we, then, fit inter-subjective understandings of ‘statehood’?  Former senate president Drilon, at least, seriously confronts the arenas of debate over the MOA-AD, but why does he not concede to explore the course of constitutionalism beyond the status quo of the existing constitutional order? That is unfortunate, because, what is placed before the Supreme Court is a new “elegant formula” of negotiability to balance between state sovereign authority and the right to self determination.

We need to examine the MOA-AD on the foundation of the formal division of sovereignty that favors “state rights” that have inhered in the Bangsamoro people, whose ancestral homeland was “illegally and immorally annexed” to the Republic without their plebiscitary consent.  Peace negotiations are said to be “the war after the war”.  Here, too, there is a subtle but in-depth way of looking at what amount of central authority in point of fact is compatible with “what is worth dying for” in the eyes of the majority of Bangsamoros in the contemporary politics of identity.

This is what the MILF-GRP negotiation process is all about: to determine the extent and limits of each side’s commitments. Clearly the premise of peace with your Muslim brothers under the MOA-AD precisely does not endanger but entrench the Country’s sovereignty.  The MOA-AD achieves, rather than contemplates the use of naked coercive force, the desirable levers of division, allocation and distribution of powers; in other words, shared and residuary authorities for the Bangsamoro people and the rest of the Filipino people.  All I can advance for now as an explanatory note is that the “general welfare clause” of the Philippine Constitution matching the principle of maslaha wal mursalah in Islamic constitutionalism is a catch all framework to accommodate “a medley of associative ties and tiers”.

I will elaborate on these points in a separate commentary on specific provisions of the MOA on AD. If only a healthy environment for serious debate is not drowned out by the intrusion of the mass media into the negotiating process that now encourage the politics of fear at the Metro Manila capital while excessive use of force are applied to villages in Mindanao, we can peaceably settle the conflict in Mindanao.

All the best,
Datu Michael O. Mastura