Viewpoints
Personal commitment
By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.
One day, someone committed the gross official blunder of attempting to consummate a memorandum of agreement on the ancestral domain of the Moro People that would in effect convert the territory into an expanded and basically independent homeland within the territorial confines of the Philippines – in line with the rare phenomenon of a State within a State. Never mind the Fundamental Law of the Land. This can be changed anytime, anyway. Never mind the persons and fortune of non-moro stakeholders in Mindanao. They really do not count that much. Never mind everybody else in the Country – except the glorious blunderer before whom all heads must bow and all knees should bend, whose mere wishes are law and whose but illusory visions are commands.
Of supreme importance then was that the delusional MOA AD of a “juridical entity” should be pursued and promoted through all means and at all costs. Its initial signing was even done. Meantime, the particulars of the Memorandum were deliberately kept under wraps. The concrete provisions of the Agreement constituted a well guarded secret of the present administration. Thus it was until the devious and odious MOA AD contents were uncovered and brought to the knowledge of the general public. First, there was a big shock among the people. Then there was virulent anger among those whose present was disturbed and whose future was made uncertain. Eventually there was downright war in Mindanao – with everybody being the loser.
Lo and behold, the incarnate lie, standing falsity and living hypocrisy behind the long preparation, the attentive wording and deliberate formulation of the MOA AD, came to fore when no one else than its over-all architect had the gall to say that the latter actually knew nothing about it, had nothing to do with it. So strange and so treacherous. The above-all planner, principal mover and key financial promoter of the not only ridiculous but also atrocious Memorandum, vainly attempted to claim – with all ease and calm – that the same primary and leading author was not aware of its lethal stipulations.
Before, the then already infamous MOA, Mindanao was relatively peaceful. There were already many guns and other weapons in the place but they were mostly silent. There was some distrust and dissent among the people but there were no killings as a matter of course, no wide destruction of properties, and no war and all evil things that went therewith.
After the public discovery and expose of the bluntly constitutional and openly treacherous provisions of the MOA AD, the war in Mindanao erupted. Lives of innocent children, helpless women and men were lost to guns, canons and bombs. Houses and infrastructures were destroyed. Farms were abandoned while farm animals were stolen or slaughtered. Lives were lost on the part of both the rebels and the military personnel.
But biggest irony in this Philippine debacle is this: The one who precisely made the blunder and instigated the war, now calmly and ceremoniously said before a community of foreign and local public officials that the same has the “personal commitment” to bring peace to Mindanao! Really? Incredible! Preposterous!
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
