Gov't urged to bare details of ancestral pact

COTABATO CITY – Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmanuel Piñol called on the government yesterday to reveal details of the draft agreement granting ancestral domain to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The agreement might be signed when the government and the MILF resume the 11-year-old peace talks in October, according to sources.

Invoking the people’s constitutional right to information, Piñol said the agreement must not be signed without public consultation.

“We were never consulted on this matter, even when I was still the governor of Cotabato for three unbroken terms that ended in 2007,” he said.

Piñol said the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) will reportedly be allowed to organize and arm its own security force and lay claim to internal and territorial waters, rights granted only to independent states under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas.

“Besides, we have already rejected the proposal for Cotabato to join the ARMM several times in the past, the last being the Aug. 14, 2001 plebiscite for the expansion of Mindanao autonomy,” he said.

The proposed ancestral domain encompasses the MILF’s concept of a Bangsamoro homeland and the BJE that would govern it.

Accompanied by his lawyer Israelito Torreon, Piñol delivered his letter to presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and chief government peace negotiator Rodolfo Garcia.

In his two-page letter, Piñol invoked Article III Section 7 of the Constitution in asking the national government to reveal to the public the contents of the draft agreement. - John Unson