Real score: Are Charter changes needed?
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This article originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on July 20, 2014. Fr. Eliseo Mercado, OMI is senior policy adviser at the Institute for Autonomy & Governance. Follow him on Twitter @junmeromi.
President Benigno Aquino III’s fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) is fast approaching and this would be the time to articulate the clear direction and the real matuwid na daan in dealing with the Bangsamoro issues.
The achievements on the ground, not words, are the real balance to weigh the President’s legacy in the peace and development arena.
The President, in his fourth Sona (2013), said: “What is clear to me: Every word we utter must result in an action that would benefit all. Every line that we craft in the agreement we are forging must be set in stone and not merely written on water, only to be forgotten by history.”
He equally committed the “strength of the entire nation to lift the provinces of Muslim Mindanao, which are among our poorest.” These bold statements.
To be fair, the President has not been wanting in allocating extra funds for peace and development in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
He poured billions into the ARMM, beginning with the P8.5 billion dubbed as the ARMM Stimulus Fund as early as 2011.
No other President has allocated as much as President Aquino in his wish to make the ARMM at par with the neighboring regions.
Mind-boggling billions
He allocated mind-boggling billions in addition to the increased yearly budgetary allocation to the ARMM.
In three years, President Aquino has doubled the ARMM annual budgetary allocation—from a little over P10 billion in 2010 to more than P20 billion in 2014.
The late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo originally spearheaded the attempts for a real “catch-up” program for the ARMM under the P8.5-billion Stimulus Fund.
He initiated under the matuwid na daan ARMM-wide consultations—a veritable partnership not only between the national and regional governments but also local governments and civil society organizations.
Together, they identified projects that would have major impact on the ARMM constituency—the poorest in the country.
There were seven key areas identified for immediate intervention that would be the hallmarks of the second Aquino administration.
On top of the list was the delivery of countryside basic services, particularly in areas of health and education.
No impact
But four years after, many rural public health centers in the ARMM continue to have no health personnel, no medicine and other facilities.
How could this happen when the Department of Health (DOH) got a share in the Stimulus Fund of almost a billion pesos? The conditions of public schools in rural ARMM remain lamentable—erratic schedule of teachers, dilapidated school facilities, almost nil instructional materials (blackboards, chalks, clipboards and other instructional things, no laboratories and libraries and inadequate textbooks).
Almost P3 billion from the Stimulus Fund was coursed through the Department of Public Works and Highways.
These funds were allocated for strategic infrastructure and farm-to-market roads to boost growth and economic development.
Yet the Stimulus Fund has practically no impact on the poverty and employment rates and the region remains the poorest in the country.
A total of P2.8 billion of the Stimulus Fund was directly managed by the ARMM government.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development-ARMM got the lion’s share, with P1.971 billion apart from the P1.97 billion coursed through the nearby regional offices.
The Department of Agriculture-ARMM got P326.7 millions apart from the P1-billion allocation.
The DOH-ARMM got a direct share of P302 million apart from the P956 million originally allocated.
Separate allocation?
A report published recently by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) showed an allocation of P8.389 billion for ARMM Comprehensive Peace and Development Intervention.
People wonder whether this is a separate allocation for the ARMM or simply a repackaged Stimulus Fund.
No one seems to know what this ARMM Comprehensive Peace and Development Intervention is all about.
In the same DBM report, there are two allocations: Item 21 with P1.819 billion and Item 36 with P656 million for the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process counterinsurgency Pamana Programs.
What happened to all these extra funds added to the increased regular annual ARMM budgetary allocations? Why is there very little impact on the actual development of the ARMM with practically no impact on the poverty and unemployment rates, much less on the actual conditions of the delivery of basic services in the countryside of the region.
Failed experiment
Is the ARMM structure a complete and total “failed experiment” that no matter what (money and good governance) would make any difference? With all the much touted ghost busting and reforms, the ARMM has remained the same, proving the truism that the more changes, the more it remains the same.
Would President Aquino include or exclude from his Sona that notwithstanding his attempts, the ARMM has practically remained the same—a failed experiment?
While there are major strides achieved in the last three years in the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the basic question that the President has to face in the remaining two years of his term is his capacity to deliver an acceptable Bangsamoro basic law, which would be the basis for the creation of a new autonomous region that would replace the ARMM.
Six agreements
There are six major agreements on the President’s watch. These are:
The Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed in October 2012;
The Agreement on Transitional Arrangements and Modalities signed in February 2013;
The Agreement on Revenue Generation and Wealth Sharing signed in July 2013;
The Agreement on Power Sharing signed in December 2013;
The Agreement on Normalization and the Bangsamoro Waters and Zones of Joint Concerns in January 2014; and
The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) signed on March 27, 2014.
These major strides in the peace process between the government and the MILF were achieved without reference to the 1987 Constitution.
Charter amendments
Yet, even a cursory look at these major agreements points to the need for constitutional amendments to accommodate the legitimate aspirations of the Bangsamoro for:
Their unique identity;
Their ancestral domain; and
The exclusive powers not only to govern themselves but also to have control and supervision over the resources within their domain.
Without constitutional amendments on the table, the Aquino administration remains, simply, on cloud nine.
By any imagination (creative, flexible or otherwise), sans constitutional amendments, the government would be short in the delivery of its commitments.
It is time for the President to address the nation with all honesty and sobriety, and admit with clarity that the previously articulated “flexibilities” of the Constitution would not stretch enough to institutionalize the CAB both in letter and spirit.
There are no ifs and buts, he has to face the challenge of constitutional amendments.
Without this on the government’s agenda, whatever President Aquino says and claims is all rhetoric and simply for the sound bites.
Without changing the basic paradigm and framework of governance as stated in the Constitution, there can be no acceptable Bangsamoro basic law.
The difficulty lies in the ongoing “conversation” between the Office of the President and the Bangsamoro Transition Commission that has been tasked with drafting the Bangsamoro basic law for submission to Congress.
The Transition Commission’s draft seems to collide with some provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
While the Office of the President’s draft law is constitutionally compliant, it is not faithful to the CAB.
If the President departs from the four corners of the Constitution, he faces yet another specter of a Supreme Court rebuff.
No renegotiation
On the other hand, the MILF appears resolved not to accept the limitations of the Constitution and it refuses to renegotiate the terms in the comprehensive agreement already settled and signed.
Whichever process the President adopts in his Sona, Congress has to enact an “acceptable” Bangsamoro basic law before the year ends.
Without an acceptable basic law, it will be back to the same scenario that produced Republic Act No. 9054 (the Organic Act of the ARMM) that legislated the 1996 final peace agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The MNLF rejected RA 9054 as the implementation of the 1996 peace deal.
There never has been any closure of the 1996 agreement and this is precisely the subject of the ongoing tripartite review.
The Bangsamoro basic law would take the place of RA 9054 and it would be the new organic act that would translate the CAB into official and legal structures of government in the new autonomous region also known as Bangsamoro.
A “diluted” basic law would simply repeat the previous legal arrangement akin to the creation of the ARMM but with no real substance being added to the package except for the new brand name—Bangsamoro.
The real score
In his Sona, is it possible for the President to give us the real score on the Bangsamoro basic law, notwithstanding the difficulties?
Is it all possible under the matuwid na daan to have real transparency and accounting of all the projects under the ARMM Stimulus Fund, Pamana and other so-called peace and development interventions in the ARMM?
Will he be able to begin the process for constitutional amendments to allow a genuine Bangsamoro basic law that will bring closure to the long-overdue peace agreement that began in 1976 in Tripoli, Libya?