LAST week two party-list lawmakers filed a complaint for treason and inciting to sedition before the Manila Prosecutor’s Office against officials and members of the government peace panel and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for pushing the passage of the Bangsamoro basic law (BBL).
The complaint filed by Reps. Jonathan de la Cruz (Abakada party-list) and Lito Atienza (Buhay party-list) named 23 individuals, including Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles, the government’s chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and MILF counterpart Mohagher Iqbal. Leonen was the government chief negotiator with the MILF prior to his appointment to the high court.
The lawmakers said the respondents should be held liable for signing the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and in proposing the BBL, which “effectively aided the MILF armed forces to successfully assert their existence as a separate and independent state.”
According to de la Cruz and Atienza, the political entity sought to be created under the BBL is “neither a province, city, municipality, nor a barangay and, therefore, not recognized by the Philippine Constitution.”
“If passed into law, the BBL will bind the entire Philippine government to recognize the Bangsamoro entity and it’s ‘asymmetric relationship’ with the Philippine government,” the complaint read.
The complainants said the BBL “effectively espouses the view that the Bangsamoro is entitled to independence” and, therefore, its framers committed the crime of inciting to sedition under the Revised Penal Code.
“It [BBL] also encourages armed groups in Muslim Mindanao to eventually rise publicly and tumultuously in order to prevent the government of the Philippines from freely exercising its functions in its sovereign territory,” the complaint added.
The complainants said the term “Basic Law” is “understood in the international law to mean a constitution or highest rule of law of a state with its own constitution.”
They said the terms “right to self-determination” and “right to self-governance” on their overall understanding “violate the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines.”
“The CAB [Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro], the Framework Agreement, and the proposed BBL use the word ‘Bangsamoro,’ which literally translates to ‘Moro state’ instead of ‘autonomous region,’ which is a lesser political or territorial unit prescribed by the Constitution,” the complaint stated. De la Cruz and Atienza also questioned that parliamentary form of government in the future Bangsamoro region since it “is distinct from the presidential form of government” of the country.
Will this complaint proper in court? Let’s wait and see.
(De la Cruz, by the way, wrote a weekly column for this paper before he was elected as congressman representing Abakada, one of the party-list groups whose advocacy is teachers’ rights and welfare.)
Mao must be turning in his grave
LAST week also saw Republic of China (Taiwan) President Ma Ying-jeou proposing what he described as the “South China Sea Peace Initiative.”
Speaking before an international law gathering in Taipei, Ma called on all concerned parties to work together to settle disputes peacefully.
“We provide a pragmatic and forward-looking course of action, before a major conflict breaks out,” Ma said. “Whether in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea, or South China Sea , our approach is the same—to resolve disputes through peaceful means.”
The initiative urges all parties concerned to exercise restraint in the South China Sea, observe relevant international law, including the United Nation Charter and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and settle disputes peacefully.
The peace initiative also urges all parties to jointly guarantee freedom of navigation and overflight; ensure that all important actors are included in measures, such as a maritime cooperation mechanism or code of conduct; shelve sovereignty disputes and cooperate on the development of resources; and establish coordination mechanisms for nontraditional security issues such as scientific research, environmental protection, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. The principle that sovereignty cannot be divided, but resources can be shared, will allow sovereignty disputes to be shelved while development proceeds jointly.
This spirit, embodied in Ma’s earlier East China Sea Peace Initiative, allowed Taiwan and Japan to overcome long-standing disagreements to sign a fisheries agreement in April 2013, and also contributed to the eventual peaceful resolution with the Philippines of the Guang Da Xing No. 28 incident of the same year, in which a Taiwanese fisherman was shot and killed.
The Philippine government has consistently pursued peaceful means in resolving the territorial dispute in the South China Sea. It is China that has been aggressive and shown that it is ready to use force to assert its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea. The Taiwanese proposal should, therefore, be primarily directed at China, not to the other claimants.
Mao Zedong, an anti-imperialist leader in his time, probably did not imagine that one day, China itself would become an imperialist country. But that is what it is today. Mao must not only be turning but even spinning in his grave over this unfortunate turn of events in this part of the world.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.