Bangsamoro independence

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front trumpeted that in a recent survey that 44 percent of the respondents voted for independence with only 18 percent each for autonomy and federalism.

If so, why should this secessionist front be averse to having a referendum in the proposed additional areas to be included in the expanded Bangsamoro Juridical Entity?

The mechanism of how the survey was conducted is strange and the information on as to who participated in the exercise is vague. The result at best is fiction.

If this survey was open to the world as everybody's website is, there is no logical way of sieving foreigners from Filipinos. We are all aware that secessionist fronts are not an exclusive franchise of the MILF. Because of the similarities of their aspirations these fronts sympathize with each other. Add to nations which openly or covertly support movements and indigenous struggles for independence based mainly on religious beliefs or plain act of terrorism. It is a hodgepodge of ideologies out there willing to make statements. Our own secessionist fronts and rebellion are not immune from these intrusions.

The MILF therefore should not indulge itself in the delusion that 44 percent of what they perceived to be their constituency are for independence from the Philippine Republic. While it is true that the national government had been remiss in addressing the problems and needs of Mindanao as a whole, there is no excuse why a large segment of the proposed BJE and for that matter the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao remains in limbo. And we sympathize with them.

But against this inquiry is the undeniable fact that since the creation of the ARMM the region has a received substantial amount of money which unfortunately went only to corruption. No less that the present administration of ARMM has to purge the bureaucracy because of the massive corruption.

If there are significant development inroads these days we can attribute this only to the success of the present national government administration and partly to the administration of Fidel Ramos. To her credit, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo successfully convinced and assembled donor countries to help rebuild and construct new infrastructures, restore and rehabilitate displaced families in areas of conflict, provide an unprecedented aid to make Muslim communities, either individually or collectively, economically viable.