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Portent of War in Mindanao…
It should be noted that both the 1976 and 1996 agreements were flawed as Patricio Diaz eloquently points out. The issue of autonomy was not clearly defined because of so many loopholes bored into the final document.
The spatial concept for that component of the agreement, autonomy, would have been the intelligent inclusion of the ancestral domain claims of Muslim tribes.
Absolutely nothing in those earlier agreements clearly enunciated the item on ancestral domain claims of Muslim tribes. The continuing studies of the MILF and other Muslim individuals, groups, civil society initially of the land reform issue, the land ownership issue, led to the evolution of a pact on ancestral land claims.
This is actually a positive portion of the peace process between the GRP and the Muslims. This must also be noted alongside the effort of the government to duly recognize the status of tribes in the Philippines vis-à-vis the parceling of the country’s patrimony to its constituents and the respect that must be accorded to the original inhabitants of the archipelago. For which reason, there is in the government enshrined, an entire tribal affairs cluster composed of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and the Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA). Sec. Heherson Alvarez at one time even was the Presidential Adviser for tribal communities.
As the GRP and the MILF negotiate the new peace agreement that now includes the item on ancestral domain, indeed the issue of resistance will have to be dealt with. But there was a more pressing issue at the beginning up to the consummation of the talks: the downgrading the MILF demand for full Independence from the republic of the entire Mindanao. As Atty. Soliman Santos, Jr. in another feature article in the MindaNews, points out, it was a terrific accomplishment by both parties that the MILF agreed to the minimum land area that will be domain of the surviving juridical entity when the final pact is signed.
Atty. Santos also noted that government should be credited with its willingness to go through constitutional amendments to enflesh the actual final agreement between GRP and MILF. The same requirement was stipulated in the draft agreements between GRP and National Democratic Front of the Philippines — the Communist Part of the Philippines’ negotiating arm for its peace talks with the government.
Santos further notes that this constitutional amendment portion is also mentioned in the 1996 GRP-MNLF talks.
Shout to Space