'Moro-moro' in the works

Act One has been unveiled. A "peace in our time" seems to have been forged with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). A Moro homeland would soon be defined, to add 712 barangays in five other provinces to the existing Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). These barangays are situated in Lanao del Norte, Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato, Zamboanga Sibugay, and Palawan.

Hermogenes Esperon, Doña Gloria's new peace czar, promised to hold a plebiscite in these additional barangays within six months. Today, they are supposed to meet to determine the formal signing of the memorandum of agreement with the MILF panel. A Bangsamoro Juridical Entity shall be made to rise, and the ARMM shall then become functus oficio.

To reach a "deal" that would create an "ancestral homeland" for the Muslims, the MILF agreed to remove their insistence on the word "freedom", and modify it to state that "the aspirations of the Bangsamoro people" shall be pursued.

How? A federal state which will usher in this Bangsamoro Juridical Entity will have to be created. But that requires an overhaul of the present Constitution which mandates a unitary, presidential form of government.

Act Two has just been started. There is a little fly in the ointment that must be removed. For the autonomous region is supposed to have its regular elections on August 11, and the Comelec has been at a frenzy to prepare for it, including another attempt to introduce computerization, to "modernize" elections that have heretofore been "bedolized" and "garcified".

Palace officials the other day claimed that the "Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other stakeholders in Mindanao requested that the polls be deferred in order to move the peace process forward." And immediately, Doña Gloria's acolytes shout, "Amen, Hallelujah, Amen!"

We are not giving in to the MILF, newly-minted Press Secretary Jess Dureza avers, but said the move is intended to allow the forging of a peace pact at the soonest possible time. "There are strategic developments in the peace process that need to be given a chance to succeed," Dureza of Davao explained. So the postponement is meant to be some kind of confidence-building measure. Not enough to raise alarm bells from within the Christian Mindanaoans or the rest of the country. They never cared for the ARMM after all, so what if the re-election of Zaldy Ampatuan, Lintang Bedol's godfather and Virgilio Garcillano's lord protector, is postponed?

Prospero Nograles, the new speaker, also from Davao, chorused in, and said he will make sure the bill to postpone the scheduled ARMM elections will be approved in time, before August 11. That's cutting it too close, for Congress will re-assemble only on July 28, when it listens to the 8th SONA of their boss woman. The bill sponsors have already been lined up - Pax Mangundadatu of Sultan Kudarat, Yusuf Jikiri of Sulu and Nur Jaafar of Tawi-Tawi. In the Senate, the unelected Miguel Zubiri has volunteered to author the measure. But it's all systems go, as far as Malacañang is concerned. Alam naman natin ang House of Representatives - what the Doña wants, the Doña gets, as far as she hands out bigger bags, courtesy of "Katas ng VAT." And the money keeps rolling!

Ampatuan and his cabinet will be on hold-over status until the peace pact is finally signed, and a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (or whatever name it eventually will have) shall have been established. But the description of this BJE and its scope of powers and authority will require the establishment of a Federal Bangsa-moro State within the Federal Republic of the Philippines.

Therein lies the rub!

Act Three, before we all know it, will then unfold. Doña Gloria will banner "peace at last", and make it her excuse for the convening of a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution and transform a unitary, presidential form of government to a federal, parliamentary state.

But wait! The Senate will not allow itself to be conned into a constituent assembly where they will be lumped with those "lesser" mortals in the House, and where their vote will be "depreciated" accordingly, will they? Twenty-three equals 234? No way!

That's when the issue goes to the Supreme Court. That's when Chief Justice Reynato Puno, Associate Justices Elo Ynares Santiago, Antonio Carpio, Conchita Carpio Morales , Adolf Azcuna and Alice Martinez Austria will find themselves overwhelmed by their nine other colleagues.

Before you know it, Congress will convene as a constituent assembly, with senators and congressmen having exactly one vote each. The Constitution, to cut a long story short, will be overhauled, and the system of government changed by June 30, 2010, into a federal parliamentary state.

The governors and mayors will be given bigger doggie bags, and they will join the hallelujah chorus. And the money keeps rolling! For sweeteners, there will be as many as 450 members of parliament, so those who are graduating as governors and city mayors can become MP's too, and field their wives, sons, daughters, even kabits, to man their fiefdoms.

All for "peace in our time", in Mindanao, kuno.

And Act Four?

Dona Gloria will run for member of parliament in the second district of Pampanga, and elected overwhelmingly with the help of Bong and Baby Pineda, never mind the objections of Governor Among Ed.

Mikey Arroyo will probably carve out his own district in Quezon City, and make "hating-kapatid" through gerrymandering, with his mother's faithful "muchacho," Mike Defensor. MP Mikey and MP Mike, what a nice pair to represent QC!

Dato will still be MP for Camarines Sur's railroad district, if Nonoy Andaya does not wise up and settles for crumbs. You see, to be a member of the cabinet, you have to be an MP too. But "transitory provisions" in the Dona's new federal constitution can take care of that. Everybody has to be happy.

And Don Miguel, the original Mike? Why, he can be MP for some OFW sector somewhere. After all, he has holdings in Canada, in the Bay Area, in parts of Europe, di bala? Even Luli can find some fiefdom to represent.

There will be a ceremonial "president." Quien?

Take your pick - Noli, Loren, Manny, Chiz, Dick, even BF. Or, hold your breath...Erap! Don't dismiss the possibility. Doña Gloria is not above cutting any sort of deal. This time, "for national reconciliation and unity," he, he, he.

And Doña Gloria becomes prime minister.

And she shall rule forever and ever, as Handel's Messiah refrains. No term limits. Till death do us and her part.

Eat your hearts out, Meldy and the late Ferdie.

The moro-moro has begun. And don't tell me it cannot happen.

Joker Arroyo, in one of his moments of great erudition, called Lorelei Fajardo, the Boss Woman's spokesperson, "stupid."

What he does not realize is that Lorelei's Boss Woman, the "hard-working" Doña Gloria, never sleeps, and will never rest, and wants always to have the last laugh. After all, she thinks all of us "pobrecitos Filipinos" are "stupid" and will just meekly accept whatever she does, "for the national interest."