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PIKIT,
Cotabato—A group of church leaders, multisectoral
organizations and people’s groups that would belong to
the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) should it
push through also want their voices heard by the Supreme
Court (SC) when the High Court hears arguments on August
22 on the controversial memorandum of agreement on
ancestral domain (MOA-AD).
Among the signatories to a
“Comment-in-Intervention” which will be filed at the SC
today (August 21), are an Oblate priest, Muslim ustadzes,
representatives of student organizations, health
workers, teachers, evacuees and indigenous peoples who
said, “…the victims of the war, must be heard because
all those debating on the [proposed agreement on
ancestral domain] are government officials.”
Timuay Melanio Ulama, a T’duray leader
from North Upi in Maguindanao, a signatory to the
Comment-in-Intervention, appealed to the justices of the
SC to “please consider and give due weight to our voices
because we, the poor people who are the ones living
within the conflict areas of Mindanao, are the ones who
have suffered a lot and are supposed to benefit from
peace.”
“We no longer want other people to talk
on our behalf, so please do not listen to the
assimilated Lumads who have allowed themselves to be
used by politicians,” Melanio said as he also lambasted
Vice Gov. Emmanuel Piñol for “not consulting the Lumads
when he filed his petition for TRO [temporary
restraining order] at the SC.”
Butch Gilman, a staff of the
Interreligious Dialogue Program (IRDP) of the Immaculate
Conception Parish in this town, one of the signatories
in the Comment-in-Intervention, said, “We are the ones
who have suffered the wars a lot since the ’70s. We have
been working very hard for peace in Mindanao. The MOA-AD
has opened the door toward meaningful peace and our
sufferings simply tell us to grab this golden
opportunity.”
At the office of the IRDP, where other
church workers, barangay officials and civic leaders
also signed the document, Gilman, who admitted he was a
fighter of the Moro National Liberation Front in the
late ’70s, said the “government officials opposing the
MOA-AD have baseless fears that their vast landholdings
in Mindanao would be taken away from them.”
He cited the “vast lands of the
Lobregats in Lanao del Sur and the wide agricultural
plantations of the Piñols in North Cotabato.”
Tanny Mandas, vice chairman of Ginapalad-Taka
Zone of Peace in this town, on the other hand, said he
signed the Comment-in-Intervention because “it is our
contribution to the peace movement that has now elevated
the peace struggle to a legal struggle” at the SC.
Ginapalad-Taka represents the barangays of Ginatilan,
Nalapaan, Panicupan, Ladtingan, Dalingawen, Takepan and
Kalakacan, the seven-member barangays of the peace zone
called G7.
Mandas, the barangay chairman of
Panicupan, claimed that “the ordinary people in North
Cotabato are really for peace and support the government
and the MILF’s efforts toward finding an agreement that
may help peace reign in this troubled land.”
Bukhari Ahmad, a Muslim leader in Isulan,
Sultan Kudarat, failed to sign the
Comment-in-Intervention but said, “those who are against
the MOA-AD are greedy politicians who managed to gain
some support from among few Christians because of their
deceptive rhetoric.”
“The text messages that circulated were
very deceptive. They did not even say a thing about the
content of the MOA. Some said the lands of the
Christians will be confiscated by the Moros; that the
Christians will be driven away back to the Visayas,”
said Ahmad.
He also lambasted former senator Frank
Drilon and Sen. Mar Roxas for “dipping their fingers
into this issue without even reviewing their history. I
think they simply jumped into supporting their fellow
Ilonggo in the person of Piñol without even
understanding what the real issues are down here. I
doubt if they have read the MOA-AD.” |
