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Portent of War in Mindanao…
The government however did not foresee that the issue will be used in the ouster and destabilization agenda against the sitting President.
On the other hand, the request of the MILF panel that the ARMM elections be postponed temporarily, with good reason, was again not anticipated by the government, to be also used as ammunition in the same agenda to scuttle the peace talks and undermine the government.
And the third item, the point on constitutional amendments, or charter change, will again be pounced upon by the same forces that are eager to unseat the incumbent president or sow chaos and trouble in the country.
Now, two days before the Aug 11, 2008 ARMM Elections, government and the MILF has so far reached a détente in the North Cotabato incident where Gov. Jesus Sacdalan and Vice Gov. Emmanuel Piñol’s people nearly came into a bloody shooting match with allegedly 800 MILF rebel soldiers under the MILF Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces’ 105th Base Command led by Commander Umbrahato. The incident will not be an isolated one.
Let us look at the general timeline. The executive branch of the government proposed to postpone the ARMM Elections and asked Congress to come up with a resolution to that effect, effectively giving permission to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to hold the exercise at a future date. Instead of postponement, the executive branch was rebuffed and the elections will push through two days from this date on August 11, 2008.
While the executive branch was gearing for a postponement of the ARMM elections, it was also ironing out the fine print with the MILF of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domains (MOA-AD).
At Congress, a proposed resolution was filed to undertake the scrutiny of the documents pertaining to the GRP-MILF peace pact. It is claimed that the peace talks are shrouded in secrecy and that its pertinent documents have to be made public or at least available to Congressmen for study and revision if need be.
Simultaneously, the leaders of the Provincial Local Government of North Cotabato, and Zamboanga City, initiated the filing of a cease-and-desist petition vs. GRP and MILF panels in the peace talks with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the petitioners on August 4, 2008. That was a landmark last-two-minutes decision. The basis of the Supreme Court decision was the submitted or leaked copy of the GRP-MILF MOA on ancestral domains, the Copy of the Provincial Local Government executives of North Cotabato. In particular, that petition stopped the signing of ancestral domain memorandum of agreement in Hotel Marriot, Selangur, Putrajaya, Malaysia supposed to take place on August 5, 2008, exactly one day after Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order or injunction.
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