Zamboanga City, UNO join efforts in SC to stop GRP-MILF MoA
By Thea Alberto, Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 14:56:00 08/04/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE) Officials of Zamboanga City have joined efforts asking the Supreme Court to stop the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from signing a memorandum of agreement (MoA) on the creation of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) or homeland.
The United Opposition (UNO) will also file a petition against what it called the "patently unconstitutional and unpatriotic” MoA, Makati Mayor and party president Jejomar Binay said in a statement on Monday, after a meeting of the UNO executive committee.
“First, it [MoA] critically diminishes the territorial integrity of the Philippines; second, that power is not within the purview of the executive department,” Binay said, adding that the negotiations for the agreement lacked transparency.
“Secrecy, as we all know, is a governing policy of the GMA [President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s initials] administration,” he said.
The Zamboanga petitioners, among them city Mayor Celso Lobregat, and Representatives Isabelle Climaco (1st district) and Erico Basilio Fabian (2nd district), asked the high court to exclude their city from being part of the Bangsamoro homeland or declare the MoA null and void.
They also asked the tribunal to order government to disclose the contents of the agreement.
"The non-disclosure of the provisions of the MoA has deprived the people of its right to information and to participate in the decision-making process," petitioners said. "This is a blatant violation of the constitutional rights of the people."
The petition will be included in the deliberation by the Supreme Court justices Monday.
Earlier, officials of North Cotabato filed a petition against the MoA with the high court, which is deliberating the matter.
Both North Cotabato and Zamboanga City had rejected inclusion in the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which the BJE is envisioned to expand.
Binay said the MoA will only create a ‘nation-state’ in Mindanao, practically giving up a major part of the Philippine territory.
The UNO executive committee said the agreement would only spur unrest in the region, instead of creating peace and stability.
Former senator Ernesto Maceda, a member of the UNO committee, said the MoA would set a “very dangerous and disturbing precedent” since not all the tribes in Muslim Mindanao will be included.
This, he said, may spur other ethnic groups to demand the same agreement on their ancestral domains.
“How will we now respond to the claim of the Igorots, for example, that a major portion of the Mountain Province is their ancestral domain and should therefore be turned into the Igorot Juridical Entity?” Maceda asked in the statement.
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