Pimentel assails Malacanang for rushing ARMM polls postponement

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)

Postponement of ARMM polls “most practical”—Adiong

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Feb. 9, 2011--“It is the most practical alternative  that the national government can adopt.”
                This  was the categorical statement of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Acting  Governor Ansaruddin Alonto-Adiong in supporting the calls for the postponement  of the 2011 ARMM elections scheduled in August.
                Adiong  said that issues related to the history of election violence and failures and  on the ongoing peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic  Liberation Front (MILF) as well as the government, 
Organization of Islamic  Conference (OIC) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Tripartite Review of  the 1996 Final Peace Agreement should be fully resolved first before call for  the elections.
                Continuing  with the elections will “only complicate unsolved social issues” such as the  absence of a negotiated political settlement with the MILF, aside from  worsening the conduct of the polls, he said.
                Postponing  the elections, Adiong said, will prevent political violence from erupting in  the ARMM where families and clans are dragged into feuds (locally called rido) that go on for countless years.
                During  the May 2010 national and local elections, eight towns in Lanao del Sur and two  towns in Basilan declared failures of election. Four months later, in what many  believe is election-related, a former mayor of Tugaya, Lanao del Sur was killed  in an ambush. On November 20, 2010, the vice-mayor of Barira, Maguindanao was  gunned down in Davao City. His death is also widely believed as connected to  the recently conducted SK and barangay elections.
                Because  of these election-related violence, scheduled elections in the towns of ARMM  are declared failures, prompting the Commission on Elections to calls for  special elections like the June 23, 2010 elections in 
the seven municipalities  of Lanao del Sur.
                Also,  voters in 178 barangays all over the ARMM were not able to cast their votes on  October 25, 2010 for Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections because of  violence, prompting COMELEC to call for a special elections in theses  barangays.
                Adiong  also called the attention of the government to conduct a study on the perennial  low turn-out of voters, which he attributed to “election fatigue” and massive  vote-buying.
                With  the August ARMM Elections postponed, the most logical and publicly acceptable  means of preserving the integrity of the autonomy of the ARMM is the extension  of the term of incumbent elected officials, he added.
                But Maguindanao Rep. Simeon  Datumanong, former Deputy Speaker for Mindanao and secretary of the Department  of Justice (DOJ) questioned moves to postpone the ARMM elections.
                Datumanong said  that it is specifically stated in Republic Act 9333 that “elections are to be  held in the second Monday of August every three years.”
                Presidential  Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda had earlier said that President Benigno Simeon C.  Aquino III wants the ARMM elections reset to May 2013 for it to be conducted  simultaneously with the national and local 
elections.
                “We need to  synchronize (the ARMM elections with the national and local polls because)  number 1, as we know, ARMM has been a region where there is such a thing as  command votes. It has been manipulated a number of times in the past elections,  that is something that we need to address,” Lacierda said recently.
                The ARMM was created as part of the  government's commitment to the MNLF with whom it signed a final peace agreement  on September 2, 1996. (Bong D. Fabe)

Bill amending ARMM law drafted

CAGAYAN DE ORO City, Jan. 18, 2011—The joint legal panel of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has drafted an amendatory bill for Republic Act (RA) 9054, which provides for the expansion of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Former MNLF chairman Nur Misuari and Justice Undersecretary Leah Armamento, agreed on modifications to make the law creating the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) more reflective of the sentiments of the Moro people.

The legal team resolved majority of the 32 issues that surfaced, with only three items in which both sides have not reached common ground.

These three contentious items are issues regarding area of autonomy; sharing of revenues between central government and regional government in strategic minerals; and transitional mechanism.

The panel’s draft bill and report were initialed by the joint secretariat last Saturday at the Indonesian Embassy, and will be presented in the Fourth Tripartite Meeting.

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita “Ging” Quintos-Deles lauded the legal panel for sharing their “effort and expertise” for “a more satisfactory implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement.”

“Almost 22 months to date from the Third Tripartite Meeting, we are glad that the Legal Panel – jointly led by Professor Nur Misuari and Undersecretary of Justice Leah Armamento – has found such common grounds and transformed to legal form the common proposals and common grounds,” she said.

Maguindanao Rep. (First District) Bai Sandra Sema expressed happiness with this breakthrough.

Sema, a member of the MNLF, also said that she will support the draft bill in the Lower House.

The GPH-MNLF legal panel was formed based on the agreement during the Third Tripartite Meeting among the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), GPH and MNLF on March 13, 2009. The panel has been tasked to transform the common proposals of the two parties into legal form and arrive at common grounds on the issues for further study.

The OIC is composed of more than 50 Muslim states, including wealthy petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and Africa. It helped broker the September 2, 1996 GRP-MNLF Final Peace Agreement.

Indonesia chairs the OIC’s Peace Committee for Southern Philippines (PCSP), which is handling the tripartite review of the peace pact.

Deles expressed her gratitude to the OIC, particularly the Peace Committee on Southern Philippines and its member-states, for their support to this endeavor.

“Such concern, attention and effort definitely and concretely contribute to the establishment and nourishment of an enabling environment for the sustained peace and development in Southern Philippines,” she said.

Deles also thanked the Indonesian Embassy in Manila for hosting the meetings of the legal panel.

The legal panel held series of meetings to review proposed modifications to RA 9054, and discuss other items for further study, such as the implementation of the agreement to set up the Bangsamoro Development Assistance Fund (BDAF); and the tripartite monitoring of the implementation of the peace pact.

In 2009, Misuari hailed the formation of the joint legal panel as the “final straw that would break the back of the cycle of war, the cycle of repression."

Misuari also said that unless what have been agreed upon are implemented, all the agreements are just “useless.” (Bong D. Fabe)