MANILA, Philippines—Apparently, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita thinks it is really possible to fool all the people all the time. After the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the controversial Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was unconstitutional, Ermita signaled to reporters that it was really the government peace negotiators’ fault.

Ermita, once a presidential adviser on the peace process himself, said the 8-7 decision was a reminder for future government negotiators to “follow the instructions of the President.”

In other words, the MOA-AD wasn’t the President’s doing.

Poor President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. If Ermita is to be believed, this most detail-oriented of chief executives was a victim of incompetent or dangerously ambitious appointees, who managed to put together an agreement on the highly contentious issue of ancestral domain with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, complete with a high-profile signing ceremony scheduled in Kuala Lumpur, with international diplomatic dignitaries in attendance, without the President’s knowledge. Never mind the President’s approval; Ermita’s version of reality suggests that the President never even read the proposed MOA-AD. (If she did, surely she would have noticed that her “instructions” were not being followed?)

Considering that the immediate result of the postponed signing involved the deaths of several people and the displacement of tens of thousands; considering that the subsequent decision of Malacañang not to sign the MOA-AD in any form placed the future of peace talks with the MILF in jeopardy; considering that the cause of peace itself has been set back because of public horror over alleged dismemberment of the Republic: shouldn’t we expect the President, not merely to fire the negotiators from government service, but to sue them for treason?

At the very least, shouldn’t her peace adviser, retired Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, be removed from office? On the contrary, Ermita told reporters, Esperon continues to enjoy the “trust and confidence” of the President. “The presidential adviser on the peace process acts in good faith, and he always has in his mind the need to find a final solution to the conflict in the South.”

Let’s set aside the question of Ermita’s tin ear for the moment. (Doesn’t this former general realize the Hitlerian connotation of that chilling phrase, the “final solution”?) Let’s zero in on the executive secretary’s glib tongue. If Esperon continues to enjoy the President’s full confidence, does this mean he didn’t approve the MOA-AD too? If he did, but acted “in good faith,” does this mean he didn’t understand the calamitous consequences of the agreement?

Enough. Ermita is fouling the air with bovine ordure. His brazen washing-of-the-hands ploy is no mere fiction; it is an out-and-out lie.

Does Malacañang actually expect the public to believe that, on the fundamental concession of a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) government that had an “associative” relationship with the “central government,” government peace negotiators led by another retired general, Rodolfo Garcia, had proceeded without the President’s express say-so?

Does Malacañang actually expect the public to believe that, on the essential point of defining an expanded territory for what would have been the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), government peace negotiators proposed an arrangement the President herself did not approve of?

Does Malacañang actually expect the public to believe that, on the extraordinary breakthrough that would have allowed the BJE to set up foreign missions and conduct diplomacy unilaterally, government peace negotiators pulled a fast one on the President?

What arrant nonsense. Ermita insults the Filipino people’s intelligence by seeking to insulate the President from the consequences of her own decision.

He may have forgotten that the President brought pressure on Congress to postpone the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao last August. It was important for the peace process, Malacañang said then, to accommodate the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) within the ARMM political process. (In other words, if some MILF leaders wish to run for office, we should let them.)

He may have forgotten, but we haven’t. That last-minute full-court press by Malacañang to postpone the elections is proof that the President herself was quarterbacking the settlement.