SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao, Philippines — The chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front sees a post-legislation hindrance to establishing a Bangsamoro autonomous government from those who will raise constitutional questions before the Supreme Court.
Mohagher Iqbal, also the head of the MILF information office, told a huge gathering here of Moros earlier in the week that he knew one or more groups who would go to the high court to question the constitutionality of a Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) passed as an organic act by Congress.
Iqbal was also named one of five vice chairpersons of the newly formed United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP).
MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal. AP FILE PHOTO
While support from various sectors overwhelmed the MILF leadership, Iqbal said anybody with organization and resources could question an enacted BBL before the high tribunal, and that he knew somebody would.
Iqbal lamented that he could not say what would happen if the Supreme Court would rule the BBL as unconstitutional.
“I know that there are those who will go to the Supreme Court to raise constitutional questions against the BBL. But I wouldn’t know what could happen then if the court ruled it unconstitutional,” he said in a 30-minute speech explaining to some 100,000 people the UBJP objectives, the MILF transformation into a civilian political organization, and briefly, the stages the BBL would go through.
In August 2008, a faction from the MILF staged a series of offensives, after the Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) signed by the government and the MILF panels of negotiators.
Also in December 1990, two Muslim lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court to declare null and void the results of the Nov. 19, 1990, plebiscite on Republic Act No. 6734, creating the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
“All our years in the revolutionary movement, there have been two kinds of people that we had to deal with more often: Those who were with us through thick and thin and the covert adversaries, informants among them, who monitored us and told the enemy of our whereabouts,” Iqbal said.
But he said the MILF has reached another stage in its history, when it could reap the fruits of its sacrifices. Iqbal said now could be the time of harvest, “not only for old comrades” of the MILF, but to the new generation of members.
“But we are not taken aback by this development,” said Iqbal of moves to block the BBL at the Surpeme Court, adding, “we are happy instead that many are coming in to give their support in attaining peace.”
Iqbal said the MILF has started to transform itself from a revolutionary to a democratic organization and from handling firearms to casting votes, without giving up the Moro struggle.