Bangsamoro Offers New Hope for Lasting Peace in Mindanao

Often, peace is the most difficult to attain in this world, especially involving insurgencies and rebellions within a sovereign territory, that somehow, no matter at what cost and how high the stakes are, peace needs to be gained by such means.

This is the deal agreed and sealed today between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, where a new autonomous governmental entity would be created, in place of the much-maligned Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which according to President Noynoy Aquino was “a failed experiment”.

PNoy have made assurances that the formation of the new autonomous political entity, known simply as Bangsamoro, would follow constitutional process, contrary to what had happened to the initial efforts made with the MILF, where overwhelming opposition had laid the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), which would have instituted the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) utterly futile and ineffectual. The MOA-ADwas deemed by many to have been made in violation of the provisions of our Constitution especially on territory and sovereignty where the MOA-AD would have empowered the BJE to virtually institute separate functionalities of governance such as in justice and finance, very delicate powers that only the national government should wield ultimate dictation and control.

Moreover, the BJE would have expanded to areas not covered by ARMM and for this, massive protestation have stormed over its validity in areas like Zamboanga City and General Santos City.

The new deal is said to be still in framework stage, a beginning an entire process towards full implementation, a roadmap to final peace in Mindanao, aiming to end decades-long conflict there, one that had claimed tens of thousands of lives and affected millions of Mindanoans, stagnating progress and development there.

As of now, there are still no noises heard about the new deal but it would be expected that in the days to come, it would be highly scrutinized and criticized, especially by personalities and agencies that have sturdily remonstrated against the MOA-AD implementation some years ago.

Counter-moves would be sure to inure as the form of government to established in the new political entity would be not in consonance with the national system, where a "ministerial" form of government would be established, similar to a parliamentary system where representatives are elected first by the people within the area of constituency, and then the leaders be elected by such representatives, this according to presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles.