CITIZENS led by bloggers Manuel L. Quezon III (The Daily Dose), Ron of the The Marocharim Experiment and FEU Law Professor Edwin Lacierda have taken the unprecedented step of "intervening" in the current impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the House of Representatives.
I support the efforts of these very upright members of Philippine society to demand that the Rule of Law be enforced, especially by those whose job and duty it is to do so. I support their efforts to fortify the impeachment complaint inspite of knowing that the cards are stacked against them in the House. Already, the House totem-factotums seem irked that the de-kahon process of burying one of these Impeachment Complaints might be needlessly prolonged or even discombobulated by an unprecedented wrinkle like this intervention.
Noting that just one day after the present complaint was filed in the House, the Supreme Court on October 14 promulgated its landmark decision (North Cotabato v. GRP) striking down as unconstitutional on multiple grounds a Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain that the GRP had initialed and was preparing to sign with the rebel MILF last August 5. The agreement would've created the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE)--a proposal which I am proud to say I was one of the very first to publicly decry and criticize when Gloria first mentioned it nearly a year before BJE made bloody headlines. (See my 2007 post, Ancestral Domain Regime or Bangsamorostan?)
After reading through the Intervention, it really made my blood boil even more than before. I find merit in the prayer to include PGMA's culpability in the matter of the MOA on Ancestral Domain. I agree that the President violated her oath of office and various official duties through inept, irresponsible and ultimately reckless and destructive handling of the Mindanao peace process. Since the government's abandonment of the MOA-AD--patently to win the Supreme Court's favor of a "moot and academic" ruling -- the situation in Mindanao has degenerated into war and destruction. It is the duty of Congress to impeach the President if it determines that the President is responsible for the MOA-AD's ultra vires provisions and conceptions, such as the "associative relationship between the GRP and the BJE" -- which the Supreme Court considered particularly violative of the Constitution not only for transgressing on Philippine territorial and sovereign rights but also for usurping the prerogatives of the Congress and the people themselves in the birthing and ratification of new Constitutions.
The MOA-AD, in the Supreme Court's judgment, stipulated agreement by the Arroyo government, to simultaneously create a Bangsamoro State within the Philippine State and to grant it recognition on par with commonwealth status in preparation for full independence. The setting up of this de-facto "associative relationship" without the consent of the people was ultra vires -- not within the powers -- of the President to negotiate and agree to.
At one point, SolGen Agnes Devanadera had offered the lame defense that the President had not read the MOA-AD in its final form, a "defensive" defense that tries to fudge the idea that the President did not know what was being agreed to. But the referred to "associative relationship" between BJE and the GRP pointed out by the Supreme Court, is a central concept of the new arrangement to be adopted had the MOA been signed. As such, this associative relationship was not a detail that the President would've missed due to changing versions.
Final Complaint in Intervention MOA
5 comments:
In retrospect:
“I really don’t see why anybody should be scared if there is an ancestral domain declared for the Muslim people,” she added."
AND WHY YOU ARE?
"Hey what about a Christian homeland? A Buddhist homeland? A Jehovah's Witnesses homeland? A homeland for the El Shaddai? A homeland for Protestants, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Hindus, Seventh Day Adventists?"
YEAH! WHY NOT? WHO IS SCARED OF THAT?
"So this is how Al Hadj Murad, Eid Kabbalu and the MILF warlords are going to attain the same status of Sultan as Nur Misuari and the first bunch of pretenders to represent the Bangsamoro people. By being given modern encomiendas."
I think I shall charge your Post with the fallacy of hoc ergo propter hoc for lumping things together as one. It is the Philippine government that had "sultanized" Misuari when he abandoned the original stand of the MNLF. The same it has done to other puppet local politicians like the Ampatuans, etc., here. You see, narrow-minded folks like Erap did the same as you do, he lump MILF, JI, ASG together as one though he know one apart from the other, or not at all. But I am more disappointed in your case, because - i think by your "intellectual background" you are more intellectual than him (though he is popular than you.)You lump together Moro revolutionaries with those samanabits you call sultans in your own line of thinking!
And you had tried your best spewing ad populums in order to condition your readers of your inveterate but sophisticated prejudice against us. why? I only hear those terminologies, equivocations, semantic gymnastics, etc., you have been using here from the mouths of McCain, Bush and other imperialism-minded-in-the-guise-of-global-anti-terrorism-campaign Americans. I think, you need to tear out the image of Lincoln here for it does not suit your line of thinking or conditioned mentality. You know well Lincoln and what he fought and died for, don't you?
Off topic Dean, but I do have some
recommended reading for you.
Try to look up the latest from Camille Paglia in Salon.
How Obama won. Why it is a good thing.
And then how she sees Hurricane Sarah.
Be an eye-opener for you.
And check me and others out on Belmont Club for latest on economic situation.
Hang tight, catch you a bit later.
Dave
The MOA on BJE is such a very blatant legal boo-boo that it lays suspect on tyhe lawyers now positioned in Malacañang. As if their brains got lost somewhere or was forgotten and left behind.
But since, this is just another blatant error of the present GMA administration, we have become callous and immune about it that there's really not much howl on the streets.
By the way, I support the brave and courageous stand of our co-bloggers. It's a classic move and monumental for us bloggers.
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The bottom line was Mindanao citizens were never consulted and they are the ones whose houses were burned, children shot etc.
By presciently exposing the ills of the Reign of Gloria I, you have proven that blogging indeed can become a potent political force. I hope I was prescient when I commented on FV that these bloggers may end up the 21st century version of Del Pilar's "Solidaridad"
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