Mindanao peace groups want in on SC hearings on MILF deals
Several Mindanao-based groups and individuals on Tuesday requested the Supreme Court to allow them to participate in hearings questioning the constitutionality of the peace deals signed by the government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The petitioners said the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) were “dissimilar to and are not” the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), signed by the MILF and the previous administration and declared unconstitutional by the high court in 2008.
“We believe that both the FAB and the CAB are instruments in the attainment of social justice and in transformational developments in the Bangsamoro region, which have perpetually suffered both political and economic marginalization,” they said.
The petitioners said they found it “grossly irresponsible for other groups who wanted to nullify, restrict and deter the implementation of the CAB forged from 17 years of negotiations in the interest of human rights, equal protection and right to self-determination, all other the regime of peace.”
“The FAB and the CAB passed through various consultative processes in diverse multicultural and multiethnic sectors in Mindanao and other areas to ensure that people are adequately informed of its substance and are able to provide recommendatory input, too, to both peace panels,” they added.
Tuesday’s petitioners include the Mindanao Coalition of Development NGOs (nongovernment organizations), Mindanao Peoples Caucus Inc., Caucus of Development NGO Networks, Unified Youth for Peace and Development, Bangsamoro Alliance for Peace, Social and Economic Development, Bawgbug Advocates for Peace and Human Rights, North Cotabato provincial board member Mohammad Kellie Antao, Sister Arnold Maria Noel, Violeta Gloria, Allan Pisingan, Octavio Dinampo, Duma Mascud and Almorzi Tabaraza.
In June, the Philippine Constitutional Association (Philconsa) and former Negros Oriental Rep. Jacinto Paras filed separate suits in the Supreme Court seeking to nullify the FAB and the CAB.
Philconsa and Paras said the two agreements compromised the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. They said the agreements violated the Constitution, which authorized only Congress to create an autonomous region.
The agreements were also adopted without consultations with all affected stakeholders, they added.
They asked the high court to stop the Department of Budget and Management from allotting funds to implement the CAB and the FAB.
Named respondents in the petition were former government peace panel chief and now Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen, chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and three other members of the government peace panel, MILF peace panel head Mohagher Iqbal, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and the Commission on Audit.
