Talks Break Down in KL; MILF Rejects Gov’t Draft on Ancestral Domains

Jesus Dureza, the presidential adviser on the peace process, said Sunday the government is “agonizing” over how to address the ancestral domain issue without violating the Consitution, which forbids the state from surrendering sovereign rights over its territories such as those being claimed by the rebels.

“The challenge now is to find creative means to address ancestral domain. I am sure we can go around the Constitute without violating it,” Dureza said.

He asked the MILF to be patient. “We cannot forge an agreement only to have it thrown away because of constitutional problems,” he said. “If we are going to sign something, it should be implementable. That’s the bottomline.”

Dureza also explained that the government was not asking the MILF to work within the framework of the Constitution. “But on the Philippine side, we have to work within the Constitution. We are working on ways to work within it without violating it.”

Part of the government panel’s duty is due diligence, “that constitutional issues are addressed adequately before any agreement is signed,” Dureza said.

Abhoud Syed Lingga, executive director of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, a nonprofit group that is monitoring the negotiations, said Sunday that he was not surprised by the government’s action. “The government is not ready to give concessions beyond what it thinks are legal parameters,” he said.

The ball, Lingga added, is now in the government’s hands. “To solve the sovereignty-based conflict, there is a need for a new political thinking on the part of government. What is needed is a political decision, not legal interpretation of laws because liberation movements operate outside the parameters of law,” he said.

Lingga, who has extensively studied the quest for a Muslim homeland, suggested that the government made a political decision “and if there will be legal problems, amend or repeal the law to accommodate the political decision” — the same thing that, according to him, Papua New Guinea and Sudan did to resolve their respective separatist conflicts.

Filipino Muslim groups, among them the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, have been fighting for a separate Islamic state since the ’70s. They contend that Filipino Muslims have been dispossessed by Christians and the Manila government of their lands and properties. Governments since President Ferdinand Marcos have engaged the rebel groups in peace negotiations but these have not stopped the fighting that has killed more than 125,000 people, mostly Muslims.

Last week, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and its rival, the Moro National Liberation Front, the first separatist group, agreed to reconcile in order to fast-track the search for peace in Mindanao. (Carlos H. Conde/PinoyPress)