The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, according to its spokesman, is not going to fire the first shot in protest over the Supreme Court ruling declaring the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain unconstitutional. The MILF, Eid Kabalu reiterated, also remained open to the resumption of peace negotiations, which collapsed after the government aborted the signing of the controversial MOA-AD.
Kabalu’s statement is welcome, but events in the past years give no guarantee that his group can back his reassurance. The MILF leadership could not control two of its commanders who went on a rampage after the signing of the MOA-AD was stopped by the Supreme Court with a restraining order. Those two commanders remain at large, and MILF leaders have refused to turn them in. The lame promise of the MILF leadership is that the two commanders will face the group’s brand of justice. So far there has been no progress in this area and the two commanders, Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdu-rahman Macapaar, alias Bravo, are still being hunted down by government forces.
The peace negotiations will likely resume, although the signing of a final peace agreement under the Arroyo administration becomes more remote with the Supreme Court ruling, and as the passing days turn the President into a lame duck. The resumption can be helped along if MILF leaders finally show some leadership and turn in Kato and Bravo. At the very least, the MILF leadership must be true to Kabalu’s vow that the separatist group will not initiate hostilities over the SC ruling.
After the ruling was handed down, the MILF bared plans to take the MOA-AD controversy to the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Conference. The MOA-AD, Kabalu reiterated, is “a done deal” and must be honored by the government. This is precisely the situation that the petitioners in the SC case were trying to avoid when they sought to have the MOA-AD declared unconstitutional. The MILF should just stick to its promise, made through Kabalu, that the group will not initiate hostilities in Mindanao. That is the essence of peace.