MERGED: MILF-GRP Peace Process, Related Issues and Developments

[æRLO]

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Sus kung basehan perme ang Ancestral Domain, unsa na kaha ang mga political boundaries diri sa Pilipinas, let alone, the world! I'm all for dialogue, but what unsa man ilang mga base sa demands nga anachronistic in nature naman nah.

[kiybordwaryur]

I agree that Lumads are the original inhabitants of Iligan City. I'm not a pure iliganon but my family has been here since after WW2. Naa koy daghan friends mga original lumads dinhi, they can trace their ancestors to as early as 17th century. You can only find their family names concentrated here in Iligan area and not anywhere in the philippines. They are not Moros. In Mindanao as a whole, there were already inhabitants long before Islam was introduced in the island. I would rather agree that the Lumads that predates islam including the Callao Man, Tabon Man, Aetas, Negritos, Malayo-Polynesians from Taiwan have more right to claim the entire Philippines archipelago as their ancestral domain.

If we are to concede to the MILF demands of a substate because of ancestral domain, then we might as well concede the Kingdom of Maynila, Namayan, and Tondo, the Rajahnates of Butuan and Cebu, and the Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu. Kamo mga taga Cebu or ikaw boss Gareb, mu sugot mo ana?

for the 1st time nagka sense ka.!

kadakong TAMA...so there's no need for peace talk.. thier as$%^&!

Noynoy should turn those rebel muslims into pieces if He want to unite us all!
Real Muslim dont kill Christians..We are all pinoys.. no need of separation by religion...separation by federal state is ok but all for one nation!

Haay noynoy... bag-o pa gani.. musunod man sa mama... na napuno ug kudeta ang term!

[kiybordwaryur]

i also have some problems with federalism as it only addresses the imbalance of power between a region vis-a-vis the national government based in manila. what it does not address is the imbalance of power between political clans/dynasties, who also happens to be gun-totting warlords, vis-a-vis local population.

imposing federalism in areas with political clans such as these would simply strengthen their position as the resources/power of that region will be funneled down their favor.

this was precisely what happened when ARMM was instituted, and the Bangsamoro people rejected through MILF.

imagine the same thing happening to Cebu with its entrenched political clans. good luck.

Good point!

pero naa man cguro form of federal govt. na malikayan kanang mga disadvantages..
I'm not an expert pero... what I'm suggesting is a federal govt. na ma adapt sa atoa present situation.

If you're suggesting sa mga political clans na mudaug per region... well wala man pinagkalahi with our present system! Ang importante ang National Leader..na ma elect..naa jud utok!

Regarding resources.. depende.. if example Cebu State..include Negros,Bohol, Samar and Leyte.. Di madatu tanan.. maapil tong pobre na province pag asenso..
Ang angay raman buhaton is unsaon pag balance pero region.. naa dapat naa usa ka rich city/town na mag lead for all members.

well diff. topic na siya but relevant...
or.. itapok nlng tanan MILF and Muslim na di gusto sa pinas sa Sulo para mahimo na alcatraz !

[æRLO]

naay video nag circulate sa facebook run, I don't know if ganus-a to nahitabo, I have never seen it before until recently. But it definitely is in Mindanao. It's titled "The Worsht Hostage Killing Part 1" (sic). It shows three hostages, and what appears to be armed Muslim extremists, could be Abu Sayyaf, but I'm not sure. And well, they decapitate the hostages. I'd give the link but I don't know if it will be an issue if I post links of the such. After all, it is extremely graphic. Definitely not for the faint-hearted.

[kiybordwaryur]

Kini gud si GMA saad-saad man gud ni ug P5M. Tan-awa si PNoy naahat nalang ug hatag sa 5M.. wa nalang niya gihuna-huna kung makaayo ba. Kay gisaad man ni GMA napugos nalang sya paghatag.. hahaha..

gi atooots.. imbes na mutuo na mga tawo sa iyaha anti-gma...
nahimo man nuon na political agenda lng..

nisamot na di katuohan si pnoy... gma dayun ibasul hahaha
bugok na presidente!

cguro pag makatunob tae ni si pnoy.. si gma gihapon salaun!
nyahahahaha

[Ironprince]

Cge pa, butar pa mo anang mga way ayo na pulitiko.... hehehe, hinuon way man tingali ayo tanan pulitiko...

[entz_fire]

nauna pa diay gihatagan ang MILF ug budget kay sa mga sundalo.

[gareb]

perhaps one of the saddest things so far is to realize one simple fact: most of us still do not understand what is happening in Mindanao, but we brazenly advocate of supposed solutions that have time and time again proven to never work. and i am referring to nothing else but war.

we comment on what is happening, without taking into account what has happened in the past, without knowing the how's and why's of things, falling easily into the trap of mindless, short-sighted knee-jerk reaction of "annihilate them all". what a pity.

if you want to get a glimpse at why Mindanao is the way it is, read Prof. Randy David's articles about Mindanao. incidentally he has one right now Mindanao from Moro eyes at the Philippine Daily Inquirer that sums up the entire issue. some excerpts (highlights mine):

A useful starting point for any analysis of the problem in Mindanao is the recognition that the Philippine government is not, and indeed has never been, in full control of Muslim Mindanao. The ubiquitous checkpoints that dot the region, manned by forces belonging to traditional warlords and rebel groups, concretely attest to this...

What we have here is not a sovereign state that disintegrated because it failed in its functions. This is rather an example of a state that, from its inception, could not hold sway over a swath of land it regards as part of its territory. It has used all the violent means at the disposal of the state to pacify the Moro people—to no avail. The veneer of order that exists today in the region has been won mainly by coopting the local power-wielders, rather than by forming active citizens.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) under Nur Misuari became the first beneficiary of this accommodation. Misuari was installed as the first governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), an entity created by the 1987 Constitution. The ARMM was supposed to be an experiment in limited self-government by the Moro people, but from the start, it offered little promise of succeeding. Moreover, the incompetence and corruption in its leadership hobbled the new regional government. The ARMM’s failure under Misuari was taken as confirmation of the inability of an imagined Moro nation to govern itself.

A new Moro leadership under Hashim Salamat reframed the vision of a Bangsamoro state, giving birth to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Unlike the Misuari-centered MNLF, the MILF was more collective in its leadership. The organization continued to flourish after Salamat’s death, and earned the right to be the dominant voice of the Moro people. Meanwhile, ARMM passed on and became a plaything of traditional warlords, like the ruthless Ampatuans, who had no problem embracing the equally corrupt games of Manila’s politicians.

The MILF program was secessionist at the beginning. It specifically drew its vision of a desirable community from the core ethics of Islam ... Though it fell short of the dream of an independent state, the Moro “substate” concept that the MILF introduced into the 2008 Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) promised a more substantial autonomy than the MNLF got from the Ramos administration. After the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional, there was no choice but to abort it.

One has to understand the sense of frustration and betrayal that this has created within the ranks of the MILF. In a sense they are back to zero. For trusting in a process that, in the end, yielded nothing, their leaders have suffered a great loss in credibility. Now, we expect them to rein in the hotheads among their commanders, and threaten them with all-out war if they don’t behave. It is as if it were so easy to end this conflict by sheer military means. Can we even imagine the scale of the humanitarian disaster that will result from a total war in Mindanao?

No, because the arrogant voices that call for total war are typically the ones who do not know that the Philippine state has never effectively established itself in Muslim Mindanao. They remain ignorant of the historic injustices that have been committed against the Moro people. They see only the death of Filipino soldiers, not the pain of people who have been stripped of their lands.

two more past articles on Mindanao by Prof. David here:

Public Lives: A Moro homeland
Public Lives: Our own dirty war in Mindanao

[gareb]

Yung part na summary executed ang mga 6 sundalo. Tell me why should the government talk with those kind of people. The soldiers were not KIA but hacked to death.

So tell me why should we even consider negotiating with them? If the AFP capture any rebel they are bound to give them full protection as what is required under the law, were our soldiers given that protection just to as what we call POW. Its under the Geneva Convention.

three points:

• what was a military operation doing inside a supposed "area of temporary stay"?
• it has already been announced that the commander responsible was a rogue element of the MILF.
• should the entire peace process with the MILF collapse because of such incident, instead of apprehending the one directly responsible? will we also wage a war against other factions within the MILF that are pushing for peace?

i made a few observations with the current status of the peace negotiations between the MILF and the GRP and its similarities with the PLO/Fatah and Israel. it's on page 14 of this thread. kindly check it out.

[gareb]

Is the giving of 5 Million Pesos by PNOY to the MILF an aid to the enemy? It was given during PNOY's trip to japan, when he had a meeting with the MILF.
already admitted by malacañang sa ANC

Wow nice..Our beloved president gave 5 million to the rebels and they returned back 30+ dead soldiers,policeman and civilians.

sus noynoy nganung BOGO man kaayo ka oi?! yano ra man panghatag 5 million sa MILF! *****a pagka bogo nalang jud kaayo nmu oi!!!

this is what you call a "confidence building measure" to show that the administration is serious about the peace process. personally, i do not think it's enough. instead of money, it should have offered a stronger version of ARMM that is resistant against political warlordism.

does one give ammunition to his enemy? not if he sees his counterpart as a partner to a common aim.

will the MILF risk atrocities like this and go to war? no because they know they will not only lose militarily, but also lose prestige and bargaining position.

this is the nuanced view that i have been talking about when it comes to the peace process. one should not jump into conclusions without seeing things from both perspectives, and taking into account every conceivable variable.