A Sacred Agreement

The ink color that was used by GPH peace panel Chair Marvic Leonen to sign the Framework Agreement was red – much like a reference to historic blood compacts of our ancestors.  For the Muslims, too, contracts are sacred. Thus, the event ushers us to a new era of peace – so full of hope. That peace loving Filipinos want to see a renaissance in the centuries old Bangsamoro homeland was so palpable in the outpouring of support and ownership of the peace deal. 

What has gone before? Let’s look back in time.

Historically, the Moro sultanates (a governance structure having all the elements of a state) in Mindanao are older than the Philippine Republic by about five centuries.

Independence movement in Muslim parts of Mindanao emerges in 1967, achieving autonomy for Muslims in five provinces & a city in Mindanao after an Organic Act was enacted by the Philippine legislature. This autonomous area is called the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. In 1977, in an attempt to appease Muslim separatists, a Code of Muslim Personal Laws was enacted as a presidential decree during the martial law regime of former President Ferdinand Marcos.  The enactment was also in keeping with the 1976 Tripoli agreement between the Philippines & the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which provided, among others, that Muslims should have courts to hear Shari’a law cases. This was also about the time that Moro became a popular word to denote Muslim Filipinos & Bangsamoro to mean a nation or a community of people espousing the right to self determination. 

Twenty years after the 1976 Tripoli agreement, a 1996 Final Peace Agreement between the Philippine government and the MNLF was forged.  In spite of the 1996 peace agreement, war erupted with another MNLF splinter group called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and government peace talks were initiated anew.

A failed 2008 agreement between the Philippine government & the MILF outlined geographical areas which are beyond the current ARMM.  This Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) was decreed by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Now, after two years on the negotiating table, a framework agreement has been signed.

The mechanism of plebiscite is the track to ultimately determine the areas of autonomy.

The Organic Act (Republic Act No. 9054) which created the ARMM already provided that the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region In Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), “in consultation with the Supreme Court and consistent with the Constitution may formulate a Shari’a legal system including criminal cases which shall be applicable in the region, only to Muslims or those who profess the Islamic faith.”  And as Islam is a complete code of life for the Muslims, it is expected that Sharia law will inform the basic law for the new Bangsamoro political entity.

The population of Mindanao as of the 2010 government census   by the National Statistics Office is 21,582, 540 & Mindanao is home to about 6.5 million Muslims, which is approximately 30% of the total population of Mindanao.

Many of the poorest provinces in the Philippines are found in Mindanao. All the provinces in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) are among the poorest provinces. As expected, this situation is more difficult for Muslim women. 

The Mindanao conflict was one of the longest running problems in the world.  Which was why, calls and proposals for new political configurations and political projects have come and go and the right to self determination was always at the heart of the discourse. 

Meeting of  Sharia women judges & lawyers in a PILIPINA Legal Resources Center workshop  

The Language Map of the GPH-MILF Peace Talks on Wealth Sharing

Isabelita Solamo Antonio

 The ultimate vision or goal is peace and of course, development of the Bangsamoro region and the Philippines as  well.  One of the main methods is the creation of a new political subdivision with more powers than that which local government units or regions like the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM are holding now. All political subdivisions such as cities,provinces, and autonomous regions are Congress created.

 The current Constitution provides for autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao. And as well the same Constitution provides that an organic act of an autonomous region shall provide for creation of sources of revenues. This was spelled out in the just concluded annex on revenue generation & wealth sharing. The language in the annex on revenue generation & wealth sharing will guide the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) in drafting the proposed Basic Law. 

Meantime, because time is of the essence, it would be ideal if both the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) & Congress can now start to look at the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the annex on wealth sharing and how all these can be translated into a legislative language towards a Bangsamoro basic law, while waiting for the rest of the annexes on power sharing and normalization.

 As to the annex on the power sharing which still has to be finished, the emerging language and the reported talking points are also found in the Constitution and the Local Government Code: reserved powers, concurrent powers and devolved powers. Reserved powers are not given to the autonomous regions such as national defense, foreign affairs, tariff and customs, citizenship, etc

 The Constitution provides that the Organic Act shall define the basic structure of government for the region consisting of the executive and legislative which shall be elective and representative. And as to the judicial matters: for now just personal and civil law.  Judicial matters are both national and regional in Muslim areas ~~ according to the current constitution.

 The CSO statement for the peace panels just before the recent peace talks in Kuala Lumpur was silent on the track of amending the Constitution and used the word “legalization.”  The CSO statement also said that the seeming “delay has already stymied the substantive work of the Transition Commission (BTC) in drafting the Bangsamoro Basic Law and identifying possible processes for the legalization of the upcoming political settlement.”

 The revenue and wealth sharing annex of the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement outlined how the Bangsamoro can have more resources through sharing in taxes, revenues, fund sourcing and sharing of natural resources.

The Bangsamoro’s share of the national taxes collected in the  region shall be three fourths and the national government retains one fourth. The annex on wealth sharing provides that this  is without prejudice to the future Bangsamoro Basic Law remitting the 25% national share to  the region for a “limited period of time.”

 Another breakthrough is the sharing of natural resources: non metallic such as sand and gravel shall pertain to the Bangsamoro, as to metallic, three fourths to the Bangsamoro and as to fossil fuels such as natural gas, the sharing is equal.

 The  Bangsamoro government  will have  the power to contract loans in its name except for loans which require sovereign guarantee,  in which case, the central government shall help facilitate the process.

 There will be automatic budget appropriation and this block grant aside from the Special Development Fund shall not be less than the current budget of the ARMM and both national and Bangsamoro governments  shall review this after a decade based  on revenues generated in the Bangsamoro region.

 It will be all to our interests that there will be peace, so that all these talk about wealth sharing will happen for Mindanao and the Philippines.  ~ written in July 17, 2013