WE ALL need to take a deep breath, and step back, carefully, from the edge of the cliff. It is easy to forget, amid the pained cries of treason and anxious appeals for armed preparations, that the Filipino people want peace. It is true, as one administration congressman has succinctly put it, that government negotiators in the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have let "our side" down. But it is also true that this failure can still be remedied.

The MILF's vice chair for political affairs, Ghadzali Jaafar, insists that the controversial memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain has become binding, after it was "initialed" by the government and the MILF peace panels on July 27. "Our official position is that the agreement on ancestral domain has been signed, so it's a done deal," he said. He characterized the decision of the Supreme Court, temporarily restraining the government peace panel from signing the MOA, as "purely an internal problem of the government."

This is like saying that the continued operation of rogue MILF units (perhaps "factions" would be a more appropriate term) is purely an internal problem of the separatist insurgents. Yes, but it directly affects the peace process, and determines whether a peace pact can in fact be concluded.

The same thing with the high court's timely TRO. It is "internal" to the Republic of the Philippines--and by that fact necessarily affects both the peace process and the MILF too. The conduct of the peace panel, under the direction of the new presidential adviser on the peace process, Hermogenes Esperon, may have obscured the ultimate objective of the negotiations, but the great majority of the Filipino people has not lost sight of it: to end the Moro insurgency and forge an honorable peace.

If there is no constituency for the peace pact, there is no peace. This stark political fact confronts the MILF negotiators just as much as it does the members of the government panel. By the same token, if a large faction of the MILF refuses to accept the terms of any peace agreement, then in fact there would be no peace.

Another fact hardening in the cement of outraged public opinion: The MOA, as it is written, cannot stand. It cannot win the support of the political class. It certainly cannot win the consent, however grudging, of the majority.

Fundamentally, it scants the Constitution. The government negotiators may have a wide mandate, but their mandate, however wide, cannot include violating or undermining the Constitution. Their mandate, in fact, is to fulfill the Constitution--the same charter which recognizes the existence, within the expanses of the country's second biggest island group, of a "Muslim Mindanao."

But the MOA does not refer to the Constitution, except in the generic sense. This is a departure from traditional practice. Compare the language of the 1996 peace pact with the Moro National Liberation Front, and the contrast is striking. Indeed, the contrast is a slap in the face.

Why did our government negotiators allow this to happen? This being the Philippines, the question in the minds of many (especially among radio commentators) quickly degenerated into motive. In other words, we deal with this political crisis as a crime story.

A closer look at the MOA tells us, however, that the absence of specific references to the Constitution allows the negotiating teams to "agree" on rankly unconstitutional provisions. For example, the provision on foreign missions (read: embassies of the "Bangsamoro Juridical Entity" in other countries) cannot but be a violation of the Constitution. Is the possibility forever out of bounds? Of course not. The Constitution can be changed. But in the meantime, the provision is untenable.

The peace accord with the MNLF is clear on the limitations set by the Constitution--and thus, and just as clearly, provides for a phased-in timetable of what government (and management) planners like to call "deliverables." The same sense of limits, the same clarity, cannot be found in the proposed MOA. Instead, what can be found are assumptions about enlarged autonomy and a vaguely federalist system of government--as though they were already reality.

The government must review the MOA, and insist on putting the Constitution back into the memorandum.