ARMM: A success or a failure in autonomy?

For the nth time, the House of Representatives have once more revived the hearings for the proposal to amend the 1987 constitution because now there is a need for it because Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III already sat down with Murad Ibrahim of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) last week and if we wanted a lasting peace in Mindanao, the MILF would have to get some kind of autonomy. More so that they now have supposedly dropped their demands for a separate state.

Listening to many radio commentators in the Visayas (most of their programs can be heard in Mindanao); many of them are already lambasting Pres. PNoy because the President has been quite secretive about the details of that Tokyo meeting. Let me point out that I fully support Pres. PNoy on this noble endeavor and I agree that he should keep certain issues under wraps until he is prepared to let the Filipino know about this deal. It’s about time that we stopped shooting our Muslim brothers and start seriously talking about truly integrating them in our country. As we learned from our Lord Jesus Christ when he gave us the “Beatitudes” which you can read in Matt. 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

One of the things that seem to come out of that Tokyo meeting is a “Sub-State” for the Muslims. Frankly speaking, I really don’t know what this is. But before we go about giving the Muslims something new, perhaps Pres. PNoy ought to come up with a Presidential Commission to Review the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) so the Filipino people would know whether this political accommodation to our Muslim brethren was a success or a failure.

From the way ARMM has been run by the Ampatuan Family, I would like to believe that ARMM is a dismal failure. More so that the Commission on Audit (COA) has discovered so many anomalies in ARMM that have just recently surfaced. If ARMM was a country, it would have been called a “Failed State”, which is why we need to reexamine the idea of an ARMM.

Meanwhile I would like to suggest to House Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte, Jr. that sometime in 2005, then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo formed a Constitutional Commission (ConCom) headed by my good friend Prof. Jose Abueva. The ConCom already came up with the output of their nationwide consultations (I attended the one in Region 7) and if you ask me, Congress should start from there, after all precious tax money has already been spent for this purpose.

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With the Azkal’s defeat by Kuwait, suddenly all the hoopla surrounding the nation’s most popular sporting phenomenon has began to simmer down. For whatever it is worth, the Azkals have proven to all Filipinos that there are many other popular sports out there where Filipinos can excel. For too long, Filipinos have had a love affair with basketball. Alas, we are a people whose DNA means few of our kind are tall enough to make it to the top rank famous basketball teams.

But Filipinos have a distinct advantage in many other sports, from Tennis, Archery, Dragon Boat racing, Motocross, Car Racing, Rifle Shooting, yes including Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III favourite sport, Practical Combat Shooting, Clay or Skeet Shooting, Badminton (our very own PhilStar CEO Miquel Belmonte is a mean top notch Badminton player), Billiards, Bowling and yes, Golf! Okay! I submit I have a bias for golf; after all I’ve been playing golf since 1979. But I still enjoy firing my trusty ol’ cal. 45, although I’m no longer competing in Practical Shooting the way I did way back in 1980 (It was then I first met Gov. Bong Bong Marcos and Mon Tulfo) when we flew to Laoag City for the 1st PPSA National Competition.

This coming August 31 to Sept. 3rd, Cebu will play host to the Asian Development Tour (ADT) when the Aboitiz Invitational 2011 will be presented by the International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) at the Cebu Country Club (CCC). This is a US$ 65,000 purse which makes its debut on the ADT, which will be the seventh leg of its 2011 schedule.

The Aboitiz Invitational will be one of the final tournaments of the season on the ADT as it will determine the top three players on the Order of Merit, where the top three money-earners will automatically gain a card in the elite Asian Tour for the 2012 season. It’s heartening to see Corporate Sponsors like the Aboitiz Group and ICTSI fully supporting the nation’s most prestigious golfing event, without them, there really is no hope in seeing Filipino golfers in world golfing events. Right now the top ranked Professional golfer who is half-Pinoy and half Australian is Jason Day, who almost won the Augusta Nationals this year.

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