To the Point
By Emil Jurado
Manila Standard Today
By Emil Jurado
Manila Standard Today
The framework of the peace agreement —a peace draft, actually—creating a Bangsamoro entity in Muslim Mindanao has been signed. This, however, is only the first step to the long, tortuous and landmine-packed road to final and lasting peace.
For instance, they will still have to create a transition committee. This committee will ensure that the framework will hold. Then, Congress must enact a law replacing the constitutionally-mandated Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with the Bangsamoro entity. That could well mean amending the Constitution; the ARMM charter is an organic law. That’s an issue which Congress must face.
There are also issues which are not clearly stated in the peace draft. For instance, wealth sharing has not been defined.
The most challenging issue is the decommissioning of armaments among the Muslims. This means eventual surrender of their firearms. The question arises: Will every Muslim surrender his firearm? How about the breakaway/ renegade Muslims from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front? Many of them have made kidnapping-for-ransom a thriving industry.
I have doubts about their willingness to comply with the decommissioning. After all, many Muslims believe that power emanates from the barrel of a gun. From childhood, they are taught how to handle a gun—it protects them from rival clans. Clan wars in Muslim Mindanao are a way of life. How, for instance, can Maranaos live with the Maguindanaoans, and vice versa? How can they coexist with the Tausogs and Samals? Maranaos are traders, Maguindanaoans farmers, and Tausogs and Samals are pirates by origin.
These are the hurdles the government must face before final and lasting peace in Mindanao can be achieved. Even now, there are rumblings and noises of discontent among renegade groups. Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari has issued threats and warnings that his group would not settle for less. They believe that the framework agreement is a betrayal of their fight for independence.
The peace draft is no guarantee that the Muslims will give up their firearms. Nor is it a guarantee that the clans would get rid of their private armies. That is their way of life. The moment clans are perceived to be weak, that’s their end. How do you think the Ampatuans have survived for so long?
Everybody wants peace, and I must commend the Aquino administration for trying. I am not so hopeful, though, that peace would come easily. History tells us that Muslims and Christians in the Middle East have been struggling against each other for the past 2,000 years. The Muslims in Mindanao have never been colonized by the Spaniards, the Americans and the Japanese. Will they surrender now to the Aquino government?
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Media often call plunder a non-bailable offense. This is the reason that former President Gloria Arroyo is now confined at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center under heavy guard after her arrest.
The truth of the matter is that there is no non-bailable crime. The first sentence of Article III, Section 13 of the 1987 Constitution clearly provides that “All persons, except those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua where the evidence of guilt is strong, shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties, or to be released in recognizance as may be provided by law.”
This simply means that persons accused of any crime are, in most instances, entitled to bail as a matter of right.
Dean Andy Bautista chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, says it well in his column in another newspaper. “Whenever I hear or read a news report about a crime that is non-bailable (e.g. plunder), I cringe. My reaction stems from the legal reality that there is no such thing as a non-bailable offense.”
Bautista says that “in essence, the constitutional provision I cited means that persons accused of any crime are in most instances entitled to bail as a matter of right. This principle not only honors an individual’s presumption of innocence but protects the right not to be punished unless guilt is proven and determined by a competent court. Thus, for a person to be denied bail, two requisites must concur: a.) that the person is being charged with a crime punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment; b.) the evidence of guilt is strong.”
This is precisely why the lawyers of the former President claim that she is entitled to bail. The evidence against her is weak.
The problem is that media are not taught the intricacies of the law.
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