POSTSCRIPT
By Federico D. Pascual Jr.
The Philippine Star
By Federico D. Pascual Jr.
The Philippine Star
PERSONAL: All my contacts and other data were wiped out when my smartphone went dead last week. Since I do not take calls from strangers (callers with no names), please text first before calling. Am still rebuilding my directory of contacts.
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SABAH CRISIS: By force of habit, a clueless President Noynoy Aquino blamed persons he identified with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for the crisis that developed after constituents of the Sulu sultan went home to Lahad Datu in Sabah three weeks ago.
Among those whom the President accused of sabotaging his love affair with Malaysia — from which was born his Bangsamoro deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front — were GMA’s national security adviser Norberto Gonzales and MNLF chairman Nur Misuari.
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REACTION: Here is a commentary from Ado Paglinawan, a former diplomat with the Philippine embassy in Washington, DC, and the Philippine mission to the United Nations in New York. He was with the government panel in backdoor negotiations with the MNLF in 1987. He wrote:
“We are giving too much credit to Norberto Gonzales. Even granting for the sake of argument that he had ties with Nur Misuari, this conspiracy theory presents an incomplete and simplistic motley.
“Gonzales was first the national security adviser for former President Gloria Arroyo, and later her defense secretary. As security adviser, Gonzales conspired with Farouk Hussein in 2001 to ‘expel’ Misuari as chairman of Moro National Liberation Front and engineer its Committee of Fifteen sans Misuari.
“Hussein became the standard bearer for Gloria Arroyo in the ARMM elections, subsequently serving as governor.
“As a result Misuari declared his intentions to revive his secessionist aspirations and when accused by terrorism by the Arroyo administration, escaped to Malaysia. The government cancelled his passports, and he was eventually deported to the Philippines.
“Misuari was held as a political prisoner without the benefit of due process of indictment, arraignment and trial until the Court ordered his release in 2008.
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“THAT WAS seven years of liberty up in the air, and a tale picturing Gonzales, Arroyo, Misuari and now the Sulu Sultanate in cahoots is definitely a looooong stretch of one’s imagination.
“Adding insult to injury to the Filipino Muslim cause, the Arroyo administration shifted dalliance with the MNLF to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front when Gonzales became defense secretary. It was this time when the Memorandum Agreement for Ancestral Domain was crafted by Malacañang in conspiracy with British intelligence, the MI6, fronted by the United States Institute of Peace under the tutelage of the US State Department through the American embassy in Manila (Google MOA-AD and USIP for the rest of the story).
“The timely intervention of the Supreme Court prevented the signing of the MOA-AD between the MILF, Malaysia and the Philippines, as it issued a TRO on Oct. 14, 2008, declaring the agreement as unconstitutional. It was obvious that Arroyo and Gonzales put up a fight because the vote was so narrow, 8-7.
“US Ambassador Kristie Kenney would immediately disavow any foreknowledge of the MOA-AD, even if she went to Kuala Lumpur to attend the frustrated signing, as public opinion in the country developed to consider the document as an act of treachery as it will amputate the Republic.
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“THE STUPID government now under the BS Aquino, whose main occupation since he was sworn into office has been mainly to demonize Gloria Arroyo, xeroxes the MOA-AD, gets Marvic Leonen, a relatively naive professor from the University of the Philippines, to edit the document, changing a few terminologies like Bangsamoro ‘state or sub-state’ to ‘entity,’ and re-introduced the idea as the Framework Agreement for Bangsamoro.
“If there is any sabotage going on, it is the Aquino administration that is guilty of recycling an unconstitutional and treasonous, and discredited trash. It is treasonous because it again seeks to amputate the Republic by reintroducing concepts that are foreign to our Constitution and national interest.
“It even runs counter to the best interest of the Bangsamoro people because it has deliberately ignored any participation of the MNLF and thus cannot deliver peace but more war, and it glossed over all considerations involving the claims of the Sultanate of Sulu on Sabah at a time when the British/Malaysian lease on that territory is expiring March 2013.
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“THERE CAN be no viable Bangsamoro without Sabah that without manipulation of law or sovereignty is the most reasonable and seamless economic engine for whatever entity that the Framework promises Filipino Muslims. The MOA-AD and the present Framework precondition the voracious abuse of our natural resources by salivating American and British oil companies.
“The Aquino administration obviously does not know that in 1962, when the British were grabbing Sabah from the Philippines and Sarawak from the Indonesians, the Sultanate of Sulu signed an agreement subjugating its claim to Sabah to the Republic of the Philippines.
“That document, however, had a caveat — a condition that the Philippines will pursue the claim in their behalf. But the contrary is as true — that in the event the government does not or fails to do it, the Sultanate reserves the right to pursue the claim on its own.
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“THERE IS definitely nobody falling into any trap here. The Sultanate is poised to action because of the impending expiration of the lease. But there is a lot of ineptness established beyond reasonable doubt.
“What is now obvious is that the turn of events caught the Aquino administration by surprise despite a slew and progression of initiatives by the Sultanate to all parties involved in the Sabah issue, especially the Philippines and Malaysia, that even the Department of Foreign Affairs did not take these signals seriously.
“So Aquino now feigning he was caught flatfooted is more of an admission that he has been ‘noynoying,’ translated for the educated as there is nothing strategic or intelligent going on in his administration.”
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RESEARCH: Past POSTSCRIPTs can be accessed at manilamail.com. Follow us via “Twitter.com/@FDPascual. Send feedback to fdp333@yahoo.com
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