MILF: Charter change essential to solving Moro problem

MILF: Charter change essential to solving Moro problem
06-May-11, 4:27 PM | Romy Elusfa, special to InterAksyon.com
[Share This]

MANILA, Philippines—“There is no other way” to resolved the Bangsamoro problem but Charter change “because our issue is a constitutional issue,” a senior member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace panel said.

Lawyer Michael Mastura, a delegate to the 1971 constitutional convention, told some 100 members of church and civil society organizations during a dialogue with religious in Quezon City on Thursday that, although the MILF could “not accept a unitary state,” the rebels have dropped their bid for an independent state and are now proposing a “sub-state” within the existing state.

But because the 1987 Constitution does not speak of a “state-sub-state” relationship, there is a need to amend the Charter, he stressed as he appealed to Filipinos to keep “open minds” on the matter.

“We are no longer asking for a parity rights. We are only asking for parity esteem,” Mastura said.

“We want unity with you,” he added.

Mastura said this was the reason the MILF had taken care not to offend non-Muslim Filipinos by carefully choosing the language of the proposed draft peace agreement it submitted to government negotiators during exploratory talks in Kuala Lumpur on April 27-28, particularly in referring to the Bangsmoro Juridical Entity, composed of 785 villages in Muslim-dominated territory that they want to govern.

In August 2008, the government, under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and the MILF were set to sign the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, which would have paved the way for the creation of the BJE. But the signing was aborted when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

The high court ruling was almost immediately followed by renewed fighting between the MILF and government forces that displaced up to 700,000 people at its height.

Many participants at the dialogue admitted they campaigned against the MOA-AD in 2008 because they feared amending the Constitution at the time would open a floodgate of changes to the Constitution that would ensure Arroyo remained in power.