Peace a precondition for Mindanao

Peace a precondition for Mindanao

MANILA: Just five days after a brainstorming session by Cabinet members in Tagaytay City, the government has come up with a hastily written draft legislation to "fast-track" the economic reconstruction of Central Mindanao, which is now sinking deeply into the quagmire of war created by the administration. The Cabinet has produced a draft bill "prescribing urgent related measures necessary and proper to effectively address the socio- economic crisis in Mindanao."

Basically, the bill seeks to invest the President with emergency powers to accelerate the economic recovery of Mindanao. But judged from its contents, the draft bill is not only full of contradictions, it is also fatally flawed. Its biggest flaw is that it is making a reconstruction plan built on shifting sand. War is being intensified. Unless hostilities cease and peace is restored, it is madness to even think of a "mini-Marshall" plan for Mindanao.

Like most improvisations fostered by desperate situations, the plan contains elements that have fascistic features or that are impossible to implement without changing the Constitution or breaking the law. The bill seeks, among other things, a moratorium on strikes in a Mindanao economic rehabilitation zone embracing the Muslim provinces in Mindanao; the exclusion of the target zone from the land reform law; the suspension of the issuance of temporary restraining orders on government projects in the region; declaration of tax holidays; and power to enter into negotiated contracts on Mindanao projects.

The bill, in effect, would convert Mindanao into a special economic experiment in which laws operating in the rest of the republic are suspended in order to speed up its recovery from war. Congress will have problems granting emergency powers to the President to, for example, impose a moratorium on strikes or to suspend the operation of land reform in Mindanao. Their suspension involves constitutional change -- something Congress can't do just like that.

The draft bill also opens possibilities for abuse. The suspension of bidding on economic project contracts throws wide open opportunities for presidential cronies to rig contracts.

Also, there's no need for legislation to curb the propensity of courts to issue temporary restraining orders. The Supreme Court has already exercised its suasive influence on the lower courts to be more restrained in issuing TROs on economic projects.

In other words, there's no need for emergency powers to accomplish the aims of the bill. But before we even think of a Mindanao reconstruction plan, into which scarce resources will be poured, there should be an environment of peace. As Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, has correctly pointed out: "The call for emergency powers is premature. The war in Mindanao must end first before we should think whether or not (the exercise of emergency powers) is necessary. It's like putting the cart before the horse."

It is sheer madness to consider a Mindanao rehabilitation plan while the government intensifies its attack on Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) camps. The military offensive destroys communities, homes and infrastructure. The government pours money into the military to destroy, while it plans to rebuild what the military has destroyed. This does not make sense.

The government believes emergency powers would enable it to have a credible Mindanao economic plan that would give the MILF an incentive to end its rebellion. But the plan is built on the flawed assumption that the fall of rebel camps would end the rebellion. This is not happening. The MILF is putting up a strong resistance to the attack on its main base, Camp Abubakar.

A rehabilitation plan takes time. It cannot be fast-tracked. The government is trying to fast-track the defeat and capitulation of the MILF. It wants to show to the MILF that if it capitulates, the rehabilitation plan will take off. This is all wishful thinking. The government has plunged Mindanao into a war whose economic, political and social toll is mounting each day. It seeks to extricate itself from this mess, but it is not heeding widespread calls for a ceasefire, which is the key to a peace settlement. While it is pursuing a suicidal course, it thinks that self-destruction can be averted by an economic plan.

The government has got its priorities wrong. The intensification of the war and the opening of a protracted guerrilla warfare doom any rehabilitation plan.

-- The Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network