MANILA, Philippines?A Bangsamoro state bereft of respect for civil and human rights will be formed once the memorandum of agreement (MoA) on ancestral domain between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is signed and becomes executory, an administration lawmaker has warned.

In a privilege speech that he entered into the House records late on Monday, Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin said the would-be Bangsamoro homeland rising from the proposed expanded Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao ?shall exercise absolute political powers.?

?Indeed, it shall possess absolute powers without any prohibition against the discrimination, abuse and enslavement of women which happens in some Muslim states,? said Locsin, who chairs the House committee on suffrage.

?As such, it shall exercise absolute powers without any of the civilized limitations in the Bill of Rights, such as equal protection of the laws, due process and the prohibition against such cruel and unusual punishments as stoning to death a woman taken in for adultery,? he said.

On the phone Tuesday with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Locsin said third-party monitors from Malaysia had wanted no mention of the Philippine Constitution and Philippine laws in the MoA that was to have been signed Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur.

He also said there was no time for him to deliver the privilege speech on the floor on Monday as the plenary immediately engaged in second-reading deliberations on the consolidated bill postponing the ARMM elections scheduled on Aug. 11.

Look who?s brokering

At the start of the speech, Locsin described Malaysia?which had been brokering informal talks between the government and the MILF to pave the way for the resumption of the formal peace negotiations stalled on the issue of ancestral domain?as ?the country that was funding the secessionist struggle in the South.?

He said he saw no mention of the Philippine Constitution, the Bill of Rights and human rights when he read a copy of the MoA that was ?supposedly on just the subject of ancestral domain.?

?Without these limitations under the Constitution, what will stop these people from putting up a state similar to Pakistan? What kind of state do you think they will put up?? Locsin said in reference to anti-women laws in some Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Asked to comment, Dr. Aurora Parong, head of Amnesty International in the Philippines, confirmed that there were laws discriminating against women in Islamic states.

?But there are also laws that discriminate against women in Christian countries like the Philippines,? Parong pointed out in a phone interview.

One example is that women who commit adultery are charged with such but men who commit the same crime are charged with concubinage, Parong said.

?There may be stoning of women in Muslim countries but men are also subjected to the same punishment,? she said.

?Reverence for women?

Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen, a classmate of Locsin?s at the Ateneo School of Law, said there was no connection between cruelty to women and Islamic states.

?In Islam, we have a high reverence for women,? Dilangalen told the Inquirer. ?But what is true to one Muslim country may not be true to another country. We are living in a secular society, not a theocratic society.?

Dilangalen said that despite the word ?Islamic? in the name of the MILF, the group was ?a nationalist movement? pushing for the creation of a Bangsamoro autonomous region.

?It may be couched as an Islamic movement but it has been saying that it is a nationalist movement. When you say ?nationalist movement,? it is more or less secular, as in the case of Turkey,? he said.

Dilangalen also said that it was in the culture of Muslims for women to defer to their husbands.

?In Muslim society, you call it discrimination, in a secular society you call it male chauvinism. We don?t have any problem with that; that is our culture,? he said.

Sharia law prescribes punishments like stoning to death and flogging for offenses like adultery and prostitution. But not all Islamic countries include these penalties in their state laws.

Iran is one of the Islamic nations that use these punishments. In October 1997, three men and three women were stoned to death in public after an Iranian court found them guilty of adultery and prostitution.

Not just piece of paper

Reacting to Fr. Joaquin Bernas? remark that the MoA on ancestral domain between the government and the MILF was just ?a piece of paper? until Congress acted on it, Locsin said:

?To us, it is just a piece of paper. [But] to the international community, the minute it is signed, it is recognized by the [Organization of Islamic Conference], the US, Japan and the other states who want to witness the signing of the agreement.?

Locsin maintained his position that the non-mention of the Philippine Constitution in the text of the MoA meant that the agreement would take effect upon signing by the government and MILF panels, and that it would no longer be subject to Philippine laws.
?We will lose it first before trying to regain it,? he said.

Locsin also said he expected Philippine diplomats to visit the countries that recognized the MoA to explain that it was still subject to constitutional and legislative changes and to a plebiscite.

One of many

But Dilangalen said the MoA on ancestral domain was just one of many agreements between the government and the MILF. He said the talks between the two panels were within the scope of the Philippines? national sovereignty.

?The draft MoA reads that it is subject to ?legal processes.? The term ?Constitution? or ?Philippine law? may not be there, but it is subject to legal processes,? he said, adding:

?It is all semantics.? With a report from Inquirer Research