Editorials:

Proceed with ARMM elections

Just days after leading lawmakers said Congress no longer had time to pass a law that would postpone the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Press Secretary Jesus Dureza announced that President Arroyo would still want the polls deferred.

Dureza’s announcement drew quick objections from various quarters, including an administration senator.

As chairman of the Senate electoral reforms committee, Richard Gordon minced no words. “I am totally against the postponement of the ARMM elections. Congress has already set a date for the ARMM elections and only Congress can reset the date of the ARMM elections.”

Gordon added that the process is already in place, including the testing of the automated elections system that would serve as a dry run for the 2010 presidential contest.

Even if the President’s allies in the House of Representatives do her bidding, the amending measure that Mrs. Arroyo reportedly wants will encounter rough sailing in the Senate. We stress “reportedly” because her purported preference was not corroborated with a direct quotation or a sound bite. In fact, it was just “hinted.”

In addition, the alleged presidential inclination was relayed to the press by Dureza, not exactly a disinterested party. Prior to his Press Office posting—a strange one because he has tangled with reporters in the past, even suing the entire editorial board of a now-defunct Manila newspaper that had dared report on pesticide poisoning in his native Davao—Dureza was involved in the long-running talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Speaking to reporters via telephone after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting in Maguindanao, Dureza said the President was open to postponing the voting in order to give the negotiations with the MILF “an opportunity to succeed.”

Dureza added that Mrs. Arroyo had consulted “ARMM stakeholders and local officials” whose consensus favored a postponement. Unfortunately, published reports did not indicate if he had identified the so-called stakeholders and local officials.

If indeed a consensus for postponement had been reached, what does that make of, say, the ARMM League of Mayors, which only days earlier had declared its objection to poll deferment? Mayor Lampa Pandi of Poona-Bayabao in Lanao del Sur was reported as saying, “Let’s [proceed with the voting] as it would complement the Mindanao peace process.”

How the elections would get in the way of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)-MILF talks has not been sufficiently explained. Vague reference has been made to the two sides reaching agreement over the tendentious topic of ancestral domain, which officials have described gushingly as a “breakthrough.”

Yet, even if the GRP panel has agreed to the MILF demand for more territory, the issue is not entirely settled. The consent of residents of those areas claimed by the front would still have to be secured through a referendum. Do the deferment advocates mean to shelve the ARMM polls for as long as it takes to hold a referendum?

The GRP-MILF talks have gone on long enough—in fact, 11 years and running. One tiny spark of progress at this point is welcome news, but it is no sign that peace is finally within reach in the Far South.

In fact, a further breakdown of law and order is more likely if the ARMM elections set for next month are moved back and the terms of office of the outgoing regional officials—a number of whom are unpopular and controversial—are extended.

Besides, this matter needs to be put in proper perspective. It is the MILF that is actually batting for poll deferment. In effect, what the administration wants is to prevent the autonomy’s 1.6 million registered voters from exercising their right of suffrage, and to trash a law duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the Chief Executive.

All that just so the government could accommodate an insurgent organization that has been battling for decades to tear the country asunder?

Let the ARMM elections proceed as scheduled. If the MILF cannot deal with that, maybe we can wait 11 more years for another breakthrough.

Editorial: Proceed with ARMM elections

Just days after leading lawmakers said Congress no longer had time to pass a law that would postpone the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Press Secretary Jesus Dureza announced that President Arroyo would still want the polls deferred.

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