The gov’t-MILF peace pact: a Moro perspective

Morolandia, particularly the province of Maguindanao, is agog as March 27 nears, when the peace agreement between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government will be signed, insa Allah (God willing). Following cherished tradition, there will be banging of the agong (gongs), playing of the kulintang (xylophone), and a display of resplendent multicolored flags and buntings to celebrate the historic day.

Sadly, however, the event is not free of controversy. It has elicited strong adverse reactions and commentaries mostly from armchair analysts and pundits, including jurists and sociologists, who express concern about its legality and pessimism over the future of the Moro people. In fact, a retired justice, in an article titled “A prelude to secession?” (Opinion, 2/4/14), raised the bugaboo of the agreement being incapable of hurdling the constitutional test and a veiled inroad to the possible dismemberment of the republic. The naysayers and Cassandras paint a gloomy picture, citing the attacks and depredations mounted by renegade commander Umra Kato and his band (the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters) and the bloody siege of Zamboanga City by the faction of the Moro National Liberation Front led by Nur Misuari as dark signals for the days to come even after, or despite, the signing of the agreement.

It is easy for people who have not been exposed to the agony and cruelty of the conflict to question the efficacy of the agreement as an instrument of peace. But to many Moros who have been ensnared for decades in the morass of terror and uncertainty, the agreement casts a glimmer of hope for peace.  And they are profusely grateful to President Aquino, his peace adviser Teresita Deles, and the leadership of the MILF for assiduously pursuing peace despite the odds strewn along the path.

But the historic event on March 27 flashes back shards of memory of the lonely, arduous and bloody struggle of the Moro people for a proper place in the Philippine political setting. The Moro war is the sum total of the colonization campaign of foreign invaders, the abuse, inequity, injustice, exploitation and despoliation of their natural resources by the government and the so-called “carpetbaggers,” or capitalist vultures. Let me cite a few snippets of history that served as the fuse to the Moro war in the hope of assuaging the negativism of those against the peace agreement.

During the American colonial period, the grabbing of Moro lands was institutionalized through legislation. Public Act No. 718 issued on April 4, 1903, in effect voided the property rights and feudal titles of the Moro sultans. Public Act No. 926 issued on Oct. 7, 1903, declared all unregistered lands, including the ancestral domain of the Moros, as public domain and open for homestead. And the Public Land Act of 1919 granted Filipino Muslims land ownership of a maximum of only 10 hectares of land, while the Christians or non-Muslims were allowed a maximum of 24 hectares.

At one point, the government lured communist rebels to surrender with the promise that they would be given lands in Mindanao and provided with farm equipment. This resulted in the establishment of settlements like the Magsaysay Edcor Settlement in the Lanao and Cotabato provinces and the displacement of the Moros.

Tales of the gory killing of innocent Moros cannot be forgotten. There was the infamous “Jabidah Massacre” of young Muslim military trainees on March 18, 1968, who were recruited by the government to infiltrate Sabah in Malaysia (this was the event that led to the establishment of the MNLF). And there were the massacres in 1971, the year that Moros refer to as annus horribilis: at Manalili, Carmen, North Cotabato, where men and women and even children were herded into a mosque on the pretext of a peace meeting, and killed by government troops collaborating with the Ilaga (members of a state-sponsored private armed group); in Tacub, Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, where 36 Maranaw, including the newly-elected mayor of the town of Munai, were killed at a military checkpoint; in Wao, Lanao del Sur, where 30 Muslims were killed; and in Lebak, South Cotabato (now Sultan Kudarat), where 46 Muslims were mowed down on Nov. 27, 1971.

These and countless unreported killings of innocent civilians have contributed largely to the deep-seated animosity and distrust of the Moro people toward the government.

Given these tales of mayhem, pillage and injustice, is it asking too much for critics of the peace pact to give peace a chance?

Many Moros like myself will accept any piece of paper, short of compromising our honor and dignity, that will keep the ember of hope for peace burning in our hearts and heal the wounds inflicted by the injustice of the past.

Lawyer Macabangkit B. Lanto acquired his masteral and doctoral degrees from New York University under a Fulbright fellowship. He is a former assemblyman and speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Autonomous Region 12, and also a former congressman, ambassador, undersecretary of tourism, and undersecretary of justice.