CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, March 17, 2011—The principal author of the Organic Law creating the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao yesterday assailed the Aquino administration for rushing the postponement of the ARMM elections, which an opposition legislator has called “a calamity waiting to happen.”
Former Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr. said Malacañang’s certification as urgent of House Bill 4146 is a betrayal of democracy.
HB 4146 seeks the postponement of the ARMM elections scheduled in August 2011 and synchronize it with the national and local elections in May 2013. It also authorizes President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” C. Aquino III to appoint officers-in-charge (OIC) as caretakers during the interim period.
“What’s the point of consulting the people of ARMM if the administration and its allies in Congress will not heed their ardent wish to push through with the ARMM election as scheduled?” he asked, adding: “Who are they fooling? The consultations would amount to nothing if the public pulse gained from it is callously disregarded by the administration.”
During Saturday’s consultation in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. and the province’s two congressional representatives strongly voiced their opposition to the postponement. “The postponement of the ARMM polls is a blatant violation of the constitution as it will take away the right of suffrage of the people in ARMM,” Adiong said, stressing that the right of suffrage is a privilege and a human right that the people in the ARMM must enjoy.
Adiong said that Republic Act 9054 or the Organic Act for the ARMM rendered HB 4146 unconstitutional therefore elections should proceed as scheduled on August 2011.
Lanao del Sur 1st District Rep. Hussien Pangandaman said that replacing regularly elected officials with appointed ones is unconstitutional under the RA 9054.
The Organic Act also strongly provides that the President only has supervisory powers and not control over ARMM, and that PNoy’s putting his hand-picked OICs in the ARMM is a violation of the Act, he added.
“The postponement is not the penultimate answer to address major reforms in the ARMM. In the span of 21 years, there has been eight elections postponements in the region to suit political exigencies but problems persist,”
argued Rep. Pangalian Balindong of the 2nd District of Lanao del Sur.
Malacañang has recently certified HB 4146 as an urgent bill.
But Pimentel, who hails from this Northern Mindanao city, pointed out that the President may only certify a bill as urgent to meet a public calamity or national emergency.
“There is no public calamity except that which Malacañang is foisting on the people of ARMM by denying them their right to elect their leaders,” he said.
“There is no national emergency except an imagined one by those close to the President who want to assume power at ARMM without a legitimate mandate coming from the electorate,” he added.
Congress rules provide that a bill must undergo three readings on three separate days in both houses of Congress except when the President certifies it as urgent.
The issue of postponing the ARMM elections has clearly divided civil society organizations in the ARMM and Lanao provinces.
The Kabnar (Human Rights) Advocates Inc., issued a resolution strongly recommending and supporting the postponement of the ARMM elections to give way for reforms in the attainment of just and sustainable development in
the region.
In the same vein, the Bangsamoro Successors’ Generation Network–Ranaw Youth for Peace and Sustainable Development issued a paper that said that the postponement is “the proper move to initiate reforms in the
autonomous region.”
The postponement will also “provide synergies for the peace process by making ARMM an effective mechanism for basic service delivery,” said the Reform ARMM Now (RAN) in a statement.
RAN also said the postponement can arrest the declining peace and order situation brought about by the proliferation of arms and increasing incidence of political violence, kidnappings and narco-criminal syndicates and
rationalize government expenditure related to elections and focus fiscal priorities for electoral reforms.
The Islamic Movement for Electoral Reform and Good Governance (IMERGG), headed by Hadji Abdullah “Lacs” Dalidig and Dimapuno “Pangnal” Datu-Ramos, also threw its support to HB 4146, saying that the Bangsamoro people
need more good governance, real reforms, and public service than numerous elections marred with vote-buying, fraud, manipulations and violence which can only be facilitated by putting in OIC officials to manage the affairs of the region and move the elections to 2013.
But the Alliance of Regional Coalitions Against People’s Poverty (ARCAPP) and its Coalitions of Non-Government Organizations and Civil Society,
issued a manifesto strongly opposing the postponement of the ARMM elections.
ARCAPP argued that ARMM was crafted as a mechanism for self-governance to answer the Bangsamoro people’s long decades of struggle. It also noted that ARMM was not handed in a silver platter but was achieved after
decades of war where thousands of lives and million-peso properties were lost.
The group believed that postponing the August 2011 elections will only bring instability in the region and deny its people the right to self-determination while pointing out that the law upholding the Bangsamoro’s rights to choose their leaders must be upheld.
“While we believe in the administration’s desire for peace in ARMM, such cannot compromise our right of suffrage to elect our leaders in a free and honest election,” they said. (Bong D. Fabe)
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