Of Crescent, Star, And Cross & The Struggling Nation
IT SEEMS like yesterday when the so-called prehistoric people were fighting to death in the name of land. And whoever wins after a bloody fight owns the land. Problems and conflicts were then solved through bloody fights and wars. In the present times, is it still fitting to use such solution in solving the decade-long conflict in down under… in a land of promise of Asia’s pearl of the orient seas?
A Promise No More
The Philippines has long been a battleground of many separatist factions such as the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Some more contemporary counterparts are the Abu Sayaff, the Jemmaah Islamiyah, and some minute vigilante groups that are spread across Mindanao. The government of the republic (GRP), however, has already solved the conflict with MNLF that was then in tandem with MILF when both parties sat in peace accord and thus creating the present Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). As a result, the MILF and MNLF had parted ways leaving the former continuing their cause, i.e., to have an independent nation for the Moros in Mindanao. In short, they clamor for a separate nation. Since then, without mentioning the “terrorist attacks”, Mindanao has never been so peaceful with the wars waged for such cause.
Only this July 2008 that a solution has been thought to permanently end the turmoil in Mindanao. Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. spearheaded the signing of a document that would seal the feud of GRP and the MILF, which now “represents” the Moros in Mindanao, the Bangsamoro. Called the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD), the document – in Esperon’s words – “[would] mean the beginning of the formal peace talks”. The MoA-AD was supposed to be signed by both warring parties in Malaysia. However, issues on constitutionality have been...
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