Big step forward

Business Mirror

Published on Tuesday, 16 July 2013 19:31

Written by The BusinessMirror Editorial

THE recent signing of the wealth-sharing deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is a big breakthrough for peace in the southern Philippines.

The deal was sealed after six days of intense negotiations last week.

The government agreed to let the future Bangsamoro region obtain a 75-percent share of earnings from natural resources and metallic minerals; a 50-percent share in energy resources; 100 percent from the exploration, development and utilization of non-metallic minerals; and 75 percent of all taxes collected, up from the current 70 percent, for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Under the agreement, which chief government negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer has described as “fair, viable and constitutional,” the Muslim homeland in Mindanao will get an automatic appropriation in the national budget. This will be in the form of a block grant, a lump-sum amount similar to the internal-revenue allotment received by local governments from the national government.

The wealth-sharing deal had been a bone of contention in the long-running talks, with the two sides reported to be standing pat on their own positions: the MILF insisting on a 75-percent share in earnings from natural resources; and the government, on a 50-50 share. In the end, the MILF got what it wanted.

We can almost hear the critics saying that the government allowed the MILF to get away with murder by demanding more concessions. But as MILF chief negotiator Mohaqher Igbal had correctly pointed out, “the resources under the disposal of the future Bangsamoro will give meaning to its political autonomy. Fiscal autonomy goes hand in hand with political autonomy.”

We believe that giving the Bangsamoro region enough resources to jump-start long-delayed socioeconomic development is a small price to pay for an end to armed conflict that has already exacted a heavy toll, with 150,000 lives lost over four decades.

The two other agreements yet to be signed involve power-sharing and normalization/demobilization. These will also entail hard bargaining, to be sure. But we hope the two sides will be able to work out mutually acceptable arrangements, so that the October 2012 framework agreement will result in a comprehensive peace agreement before the end of the Aquino administration in 2016.

Peace in Mindanao is still a long way off, with an MILF breakaway group engaged in hostilities with government troops in certain parts; the Abu Sayyaf Group still involved in kidnap-for-ransom in its strongholds in Sulu and Basilan; and the communist-led New People’s Army carrying out raids on mining and logging companies that refuse to pay the so-called revolutionary tax, which is nothing more than extortion.

The latest development in the political negotiations with the MILF, however, gives us much hope that the armed conflict will soon be a thing of the past. It’s about time the people of Mindanao are given the chance to live in peace.  source