Young Moro professionals push for Bangsamoro cause

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — In an attempt to unify Bangsamoro young professionals over the so-called Bangsamoro cause, the Young Moro Professionals Network-Mindanao (YMPNM) has gathered Muslim youth leaders to hopefully agree on concerted efforts after the death of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD). Young Moro leaders from various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups all over Mindanao, who gathered at the Mindanao Training Resource Center here on November 28 for an intra-faith round-table discussion on peace building, sat down to discuss various issues confronting the Bangsamoro people. Samira Gutoc, lead organizer of the event and founding chair of the YMPNM, in providing the rationale of the activity, stressed that the Moro cause may not only be the assertion of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity but revolves around "the many layers of discrimination" against the Moro people. The BJE is the proposed territory that is supposed to be governed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had the MOA-AD been signed and the peace talks proceeded. Gutoc enumerated the Moro cause as: 1) affirmation of the right to self-determination (RSD), 2) a Moro nationalist identity, and, 3) uplift of Moro people's lives. She said that the Moro peoples’ cause "is beyond the MOA-AD" but admitted that the controversial dead accord already reflected the Bangsamoro's aspiration for a territory to govern. "Territory and control," Gutoc said when asked what particular aspects of Moro RSD is embodies in the dead MOA-AD. But while the MOA-AD might have failed to unite the Bangsamoro people, Gutoc said that everyone of them could relate to the historic fact that they are "ancestors of many who died fighting for freedom and respect of our human rights." The Supreme Court has killed the MOA-AD in a final decision that denied a Motion for Reconsideration of the SC's earlier ruling declaring the supposed accord unconstitutional, a plea of politicians who quickly blocked the supposed signing of the accord on August 5 by asking the High Court to restrain the government negotiators from inking the pact. Among the political figures who fought hard against the MOA-AD were Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Piňol, former Senate President Franklin Drilon, presidential aspirant Senator Mar Roxas and Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat. Apparently oblivious of the High Court's decision on the MOA-AD, an accord that could have traded land for peace, majority of the participating youth leaders to the YMPNM's Round-table discussion, asserted that "the MOA-AD should be signed" even as they lambasted government for "offering something which it could not after all give." Drieza Liniding, YMPNM secretary-general, one of those strongly asking government to "honor the MOA-AD," asserted that the dead accord could have defined the "roadmap to peace that could have led to the resolution of the conflict." "Had the MOA-AD been signed, it could have empowered the government and the MILF to conduct consultations on the provisions of the agreements they have reached," Liniding said as he blamed the failure to sign the document as the cause of the divide among the Bangsamoro people. Gutoc, on the other hand, admits that they were not really united on their position on the MOA-AD. "Our voices were not in synch," she said as she justified the "intra-faith" focus of their activity that forms part of their contribution to the week long celebration of Mindanao Week of Peace that started November 27. - GMANews.TV