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