With all that’s been written about the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity MOA on Ancestral Domain (BJE MOA on AD), it is as if the issue gets more and more tiring to discuss and write about everyday. It’s September 2. Two days more and the SC TRO celebrates(?) its one month anniversary. To this day, although the BJE MOA on AD seems to be good as dead — or “comatose” as others have called it — the issue just wouldn’t die a natural death. And why not? Freedom(?) or self-determination and the struggle for it is something far more important than the struggle for survival. If you don’t believe it, ask yourself why we have heroes now. Ask yourself why Jose Rizal, the Ilustrado that he is or Andres Bonifacio, the poor guy that he is — the two of them doing their own style of revolt had no second thoughts about putting their lives at risk for something they believed was above them or of their preoccupations — the vision of a free Philippines. They know first-hand how a lot more difficult it is to survive and yet be enslaved or put more objectively, be under the rule of a colonizer. It is every man’s instinct to fight for freedom — for self-rule.
It is no wonder then, that the struggle of the Bangsamoro people, our brothers and sisters who consider themselves no less Filipinos than we all are despite their desire for self-determination, have continually fought for their right at all odds and at all costs. BJE or no BJE, their struggle for recognition and acceptance as the “first nation” will always remain. This sentiment burns inside them, passed on from generations to generations..and will probably continue even after many of us are long gone. Sometimes, I feel that if we, the “more tolerant” people of the Spanish and American occupation had that same conviction, everything would have been different. Not necessarily better or worse — but different.
After all that’s happened this past month, it is obvious. After all these years, we still aren’t ready to accept them. As the song goes, “so glad we’ve almost made it…so sad they had to fade it..” We were almost there. We were so close. It could have brought us the peace we’ve long been waiting for. We were so close. But how are we to know now? The MOA was dead the moment it was TRO’d by the SC. That wasn’t just a snag or a hurdle we had to overcome. That was a barrier. A thick concrete wall that went up so high there was no way to cross it.
It’s tempting to think that somehow the message of peace embedded in the botched BJE MOA on AD was lost in translation — as it was “translated” by speculators and other otherwise well-meaning pundits. Sometimes headlines can be very misleading. Sometimes, it is best to play cynic. As I’ve noticed, many articles on the MOA had been mostly anti-BJE. I hope that doesn’t mean they are anti-peace. But just the same, the picture of the Bangsamoro being secessionists are prevalent in the papers. Just look at the headliines, editorials and caricatures. It is therefore no wonder that the BJE MOA never found favor in the average ill-informed or uninformed Filipino.
But right now, it seems useless to lobby for it. The Palace, through Solicitor General Devanadera and almost all its secretaries (press, executive..etc) have unanimously announced that the government is now junking the MOA for real. It will not be signed either in its “present form” or “in any form” and have quickly announced a new policy for dealing with the negotiations — that it will only be in the context of DDR (disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation). And what do you expect the MILF thinks about all this? As if they’ll ever say yes to this excitedly. I’m guessing they have this to say: “DDR? In your dreams, pare!”. I mean, come on. Do you expect them to believe that they will finally achieve through unarmed negotiations what they never got through armed negotiations? Very Hollywood-ish. Unlikely, if you ask me. They will never give up the sole source of their perceived power. All this new strategy will lead just lead to more and more conflict and more and more related problems. And now, we face a new issue. We face the issue of starting over and starting off at the wrong foot. This is no clean slate. This is a full plate we start with.
“Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back..”
This is our life now — the post-BJE-MOA-junked kind of life. Endless fighting. More food scarcity. More evacuees, now having their Ramadan in makeshift ecvacuation centers with no more than a roof for protection. More political and social unrest. Oh, yes, we have our little Darfur now here in our own backyard. It may not be a direct ethnic-cleansing but it’s war just the same. This is our people suffering here. These are fellow Filipinos.
I hope there aren’t Filipinos celebrating the fact that the peace process was a failure — that the BJE MOA was a failure. That the negotiators were failures. That we are now at war.
To you, my fellow Filipinos, Muslims. Christians, Lumads.. and all the stakeholders in the Mindanao peace process, in this crucial time in our history, I dedicate this song:
Everybody Wants to Rule The World — by Tears for Fears
RJMarmol.com - Since 2008. 
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