"Enduring" Peace is the Folly of a Fleeting Presidency

“Enduring” Peace is the Folly of a Fleeting Presidency

By Fr. Eliseo ‘Jun’ Mercado, OMI

      Professor – Notre Dame University Graduate School

      Visiting Professor – San Beda Graduate School of Laws

I have seen and got involved in various ways with the peace processes from the time of President Marcos with his famous 1976 Tripoli Agreement to President Ramos’ 1996 Final Peace Agreement to President Aquino’s 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) to PRRD “Federal Express Train”.

Of the Philippine Presidents in our contemporary times, there were two that had a privileged position that could have acted decisively on the continuing struggles and conflict in the country. The first was President Marcos who from 1972 to his departure in 1986 enjoyed both the Executive and Legislative powers. And second was the earlier President Aquino, who, after EDSA People Power, also enjoyed plenary Executive and Legislative Powers.

Mr. Marcos with his draconian powers produced the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and the two autonomous regions – Region 9 and Region 12  - consisting of ten provinces and all cities therein.  Regional Autonomous Government 9 consisted of the provinces of Basila, Sulu, Tawi Tawi, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur and all Cities therein (Pagadian, Dapitan, Dipolog and Zamboanga City) with Zamboanga City as the Capital. Regi0nal Autonomous Government 12 consisted of the provinces of Lanao del Noirte, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat and all cities therein (Cotabato, Iligan and Marawi) with Cotabato City as the Capital.

President. Marcos also produced the Muslim Personal and Family Relations (PD 1083).  The Muslims, albeit limited to personal laws and family relations like marriages and succession including inheritance, under PD 1083 or otherwise known as the Shari’a Law, now live and are governed according to their own religious laws.  Mr. Marcos established Shari’a District and Circuit Courts (5 District Shari’a Courts and  51 Circuit Shari’a Courts) in both RAG 9 and RAG 12.  In the same vein, Mr. Marcos recognized Muslim Holidays as official public holidays for both RAG 9 and RAG 12 under PD 291 (Act Recognizing Muslim Holidays and Providing for their Implementation).

Mrs. Aquino, while enjoying the plenary powers under the Revolutionary Constitution, had left the issue of autonomy and self-governance to the Constitutional Commission that produced the 1987 Constitution with concrete provisions (Article X, Sections 15-21) on the two autonomous regions – one in the Cordillera and another in Muslim Mindanao. 

President Cory Aquino, consistent to her 1987 Constitution, shaped Republic Act  6734 otherwise known as the Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.  Only four (4) provinces (Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi Tawi) ratified the new Law and they became the constituent units of the ARMM.

President Fidel Ramos signed the Final Peace Accord with the Moro National Liberation Front on September 2, 1996.  While his government initiated the process of amending the ARMM Organic Act (RA 6734), he issued the Executive Order 371 that established the transitional mechanisms or the Phase 1 of the implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Accord.

This phase one consisted in establishing a Special Zone of Peace and Development or SZOPAD with two transitional mechanisms – the Southern Philippines Council on Peace and Development or SPCPD and the Consultative Assembly or CA. The Ramos peace initiative recaptured the 13 provinces and all cities therein of the original 1976 Tripoli Agreement.  Peace and Development was the common denominator instead of the usual contentious territorial boundaries.  The key was to make SZOPAD a real FOCUS of INTENSE DEVELOPMENT.

Phase two was the enactment of the amendatory law to RA 6734.  While the Ramos Government began the process of amending the said Law, the actual Law (RA 9054) lapsed into Law in 2001 during the Presidency of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In 2001 plebiscite, the 4 constituent units of the ARMM accepted the amendments and only one province (Basilan) and one city (Marawi) ratified RA 9054 of the 9 provinces and 9 cities included in the area of plebiscite. Thus Basilan and Marawi City joined the existing ARMM.

With the enactment of the enabling law required by the 1996 Final Peace Accord, the conduct of the plebiscite on the said law and the subsequent elections in the new expanded ARMM in 2001 the “period” of transition elapsed.  The SZOPAD, SPCPD and the Consultative Assembly ceased to exist.

The MNLF under Chairman Nur Misuari rejected RA 9054 as a betrayal of the 1996 Final Peace Accord both in the letter and spirit.  He also rejected the plebiscite and the subsequent elections in the newly expanded ARMM. However, a newly emerged MNLF Reformist Group under the Council of 15 accepted the whole new packaged.  Chairman Misuari went back to the hills, and the MNLF Council of 15 joined the expanded ARMM under RA 9054.

President Benigno Aquino, III signed a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro with the other faction of the Moro Rebellion (the MILF) on March 27, 2014.  But the ‘legal tender’ of the peace agreement is the legislation of the Basic Law by Congress that remains un limbo.  The two versions of the Bangsamoro Basic Law – House Bill 5811 and Senate Bill 2894, because of lack of time and other intervening events like the Mamasapano Massacre of the 44 PNP Special Forces in a botched police operation against the terrorists Marwan and Basit and the 2016 Presidential Elections, never reached the final stage of legislation. These two Bills were subsequently archived!

There are two TRAGIC Aquino legacies. The earlier Aquino (President Corazon) produced ARMM with only five provinces with her RA 6734 much shorter of the Marcos versions under PD 1618 with 10 Provinces. And the latter Aquino even fell shorter by leaving the Mamasapano Massacre that shocked the nation and the archived two ambiguous versions of BBL.

With the assumption of a first Mindanao President in the person of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte in July 2016, a new “policy” and government priority has emerged, that is, to amend the 1987 Constitution that would prepare for the shift from unitary form of government to Federalism.  In this thrust, legislating the BBL is kept ‘hanging”. Government is caught in a bend – that is - to legislate a BBL when the present 1987 Constitution seems to disallow many of its proposed provisions or wait for the shift to Federalism and then tackle the issue of a Bangsamoro quasi State. This has been the push and the pull factors in the consideration of the BBL now in Congress for legislation.

At the outset, in the fist Presidential State of the Nation Address or SONA, President Duterte articulated that he would allow the enactment of the BBL sans all its unconstitutional provisions.  Those provisions would meanwhile wait until the Constitution has been amended.  This has articulated policy remains thus what is now being discussed in Congress is to sort out in the draft BBL the provisions that the 1987 Constitution allows and enact a “transitional” BBL that is “constitutionally” compliant and “park” meanwhile all the provisions that are deemed unconstitutional and tackled these provisions during the actual amendment of the Constitution that would pave the way for the shift to Federalism.

The actual legislation of a transitional BBL would take sometime…There are two options:  First, both Houses retrieve their respective archived BBL or Basic Act for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region or BLBAR (Rodriguez House Version and Marcos Senate Version) and “re-filed” them; Second, take the new proposed BBL submitted by the BTC part 2 and begin the process all over anew with committee hearings and public hearings and then plenary debates.  Which to take would all depend on the cue from the leadership of both Houses and the presidency.  Meanwhile the Federal Express Train is about to leave the “main” station by December 2017.

The whole process of legislation is further complicated by the debacle of the ISIS Siege of Marawi that brought not only a destruction of a city but also horror and terror to all. What seems paramount after the ISIS Siege of Marawi is the policy of “all-out-war” against terrorism.  No doubt, with the continuing Martial Law in Mindanao, the war against terrorism and violent religious extremism would occupy major considerations and allocation of government resources.

In short, both the Executive and Congress are caught in this dilemma and whatever, (it may seem to me) that future of the BBL would NOW depend on the debates, consensus and the final outcome of the proposed Constitutional revision that would pave the way for the shift to Federalism.  In short, the BBL consideration would recede into the background as the debates on the Constitutional Amendments begin.