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By GRACE S. UDDIN | Davao Today

DAVAO CITY—Just how important was the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) to the Moro people?

Mohagher Iqbal, the chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said the document contains the political solution to the age-old problem of the Bangsamoro people.

He said that the Bangsamoro’s age-old problem had something to do with self-governance. The Bangsamoro people, who used to be under the rule of a Sultanate, lost their self- governance when Spain included Mindanao in the sale of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris in 1898, despite the fact that Spain never really conquered Mindanao as part of the colony.

How can it sell something that it did not own in the first place? Bangsamoro scholar Abhoud Syed M. Lingga asked in a 2002 paper he presented to a tri-people’s (Lumads, Muslims and Christians) gathering in Davao.

Iqbal always referred to the official granting of Philippine independence by the Americans in 1946 as the beginning of the “annexation” of Mindanao to the Philippines. He said the Moro people were not asked whether they wanted to be included in the Philippines or not.

Lingga said that Bangsamoro leaders did not want to be part of the Philippine republic during the granting of its independence from the United States.

In his paper, “Referendum: A political option for Mindanao,” Lingga said Moro leaders even wanted the islands of Mindanao, Palawan and Sulu cut off from the Philippines in 1924, expressing their desire to be a US colony because they hoped that later on, they will be granted independence as a separate state under the UN declaration on de-colonization.

ACCORDING TO Iqbal, the MOA on ancestral domain would have been a step toward the Bangsamoro people’s right to self- determination because it would have given the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) the authority over territories covered by the BJE.

“It gives back to our people their lost sovereignty, their right to govern themselves either in the form of state or substate,” he said. “The right to self determination is the collective right of people to determine their political status and to pursue their social, economic development.”

Various United Nations instruments have enshrined the people’s right to self determination, including Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states that all “peoples have the right to self- determination, by virtue of which, they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

Iqbal said that BJE’s powers have yet to be spelled out in the comprehensive compact, which was supposed to be the third and the last agenda in the talks between the government and the MILF.

“Without BJE, which is the framework agreement, the comprehensive compact cannot be crafted,” Iqbal said.

Under the BJE, the MILF had settled for “shared authority” in terms of territory, resources and governance. Iqbal said ’shared authority’ is different from ’shared sovereignty,’ which the MILF initially asserted but eventually compromised, because the government construed it to mean “granting independence” to MILF.

“The GRP is afraid to open (granting independence to MILF) because of its many crimes against the Moro people and because of vested interests of political warlords and business oligarchs,” Iqbal said.

BJE also redefines the relationship of the Bangsamoro and the Filipino people, according to Iqbal. After Mindanao was included in the territories that made up the Philippines, he said, the Moro people have become “second class” citizens.

“It is rare for the Moro people to occupy positions in the bureaucracy,” he said. “Who is the President? Who are the senators? Who own big companies in Mindanao? Who heads the military and the police? Who are the big landowners?” he asked.

He explained that the BJE would have redefined such ‘lop-sided’ relationship.

Most of all, the BJE recognized the Moro people as the “First Nation,” which Iqbal said, meant they’re the original occupants of Mindanao. The document defines the First Nation as a “domestic community” distinct from the rest of the national community, which has a “definite historic homeland.” The First Nation has a “defined territory” and a “system of government.”

Iqbal claimed the former Sultanates that governed Mindanao had entered into “treaties of amity and commerce” with foreign lands, as proof of this advanced system of government.

In the book “Bangsamoro, a Nation Under Endless Tyranny,” Salah Jubair, (Iqbal’s pseudonym) said the Sulu sultanate, considered even more superior than the Brunei sultanate, ruled the entire Sulu archipelago, Basilan, Mindoro, Palawan and Sabah in 1450.

He said the Maguindanao sultanate, at one time headed by Sultan Dipatuan Muhammad Qudarat, had once controlled the whole of Cotabato, Lanao, Davao, Misamis, Bukidnon and Zamboanga during its grandest time in 1619.

Amirah Lidasan, president of partylist group Suara Bangsamoro, said the BJE is just a piece of paper that recognized the birthright of all Moros as original inhabitants of Mindanao, Palawan and Sulu.For Lidasan, BJE also defined the ancestral domain of the Moro people, by including those villages where the Moro live.

In the 1890s, the Moro people controlled ninety percent of Mindanao but now they own only about fifteen percent of the land in Mindanao, Lidasan pointed out.

Among the Bangsamoro people are 13 ethnolinguistic tribe which include Kalbogan, Jama Mapun, Badjao, Tausug, Samal or Sama Bangingi, Maranao, Iranon, Maguindanao, Yakan, Sangir, Kalagan, Palawanis and Molbog in Palawan.

Lidasan referred to the Sulu sultanate, founded in 1450, as the oldest and the most developed.

Jubair said that before the turn of the 20th century, the Moros owned ninety-eight percent of the lands in Mindanao and Sulu but several land laws during the American colonization have taken the land away from them.

Public Land Act No. 718, enacted by the Philippine Commission under the Americans, nullified all land grants made by Moro leaders or any Christian tribes without the authority of the state.

The Mining Law of 1905 declared all public lands free, open for exploration, occupation and purchase. This particularly included Mindanao.

Commonwealth Act No. 141 limited the lands that the Moros could apply for titling to not more than four hectares; while Christian settlers are allowed as much as 24 hectares; and corporations as much as 1,024 hectares.

Several other land laws stole the lands of the Moros for big agricultural corporations, Iqbal wrote.

But Lidasan said the BJE should ensure that the plunder of lands in Mindanao should stop. Lidasan said Suara is wary of the provision in the BJE that continues existing mining concessions and timber licenses.

“How can we say that we are Bangsamoro if the lands where we are standing are already owned by big plantations and mining companies?” asked Lidasan.

Lidasan also said that they are wary of the US government intervening in the BJE because of the provision that allows joint ventures in developing and utilizing the resources.

“Will it still be an ancestral domain if foreign corporations already have claims over the land?” she asked. Lidasan said the right to self-determination would not be realized if societies under the BJE are still oppressed. She said that the Moro people continued to be displaced from their communities to give way to projects of big multi-national corporations. She said the government’s all-out war against bandits like the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiya also displaced civilians from their communities.

In 2000, the government’s all-out war against the MILF, killed over a hundred civilians and displaced 100,000 in Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and Davao Oriental; the “Silent War” (as she referred to the discreet entry of US troops for counterinsurgency operations) in 2000-2002 in Sulu; the attack of Buliok Complex in February 2003, displaced 160,000 and killed 12 people and nine children in Pikit, North Cotabato and Pagalungan, Maguindanao (Liguasan Marsh) .

In July 2001, the declaration of the “state of lawlessness” in Basilan, Zamboanga city and Sulu, forced 20,000 to leave their homes and led to the illegal arrest of 500 people.

Even the twin bombing of the Davao airport and Sasa wharf in 2003 led to warrantless arrests of Moro people in Cotabato and Davao City, Lidasan said.

The failed signing of the MOA-AD reminds the MILF of the failure of the Moro National Liberation Front’s peace negotiation with the government. If there is a lesson that MILF learned from MNLF, it is that the government will take back what it has conceded once the agreement is signed, Iqbal said.

Nur Misuari, MNLF chair, signed the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) with the Ramos administration in 1996. Iqbal said the Arroyo government cannot be trusted.

But no matter what happened to the MOA-AD, the MILF will continue the struggle for the right to self-determination, which is still the key to a lasting peace in Mindanao, Iqbal said. “There is no easy path,” he said. “But we will move forward.”