‘What kind of food do you eat?’

If not for the Mamasapano bloodbath that claimed the lives of 44 police commandos and unraveled the shadow chain of command in the Philippine National Police, the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) would have already been hammered around this week before Congress goes on recess.

A landmark measure cannot be passed without the Executive leveraging its influence so that if the Aquino administration was able to get Congress pass the RH Law or impeach former Chief Justice Renato Corona, what is the BBL in the legislature’s scheme of things?

Congress has always been wary of  Muslim secessionist demands for close to three decades after Martial Law but lawmakers in general would rather go with the flow and elevate the decision to the Supreme Court rather than tangle with the proponents of the law that would give economic and political power to the Muslims in Mindanao.  Call it political reality or subservience which in normal times do not quite get much attention but this time around, I think Congress has been losing sleep over the BBL.

The Ramos administration conceived and created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.  The ARMM was deemed a failure so former President Gloria Arroyo tried to reach out to the movement to keep the peace.

In 2008, while her administration negotiated with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in a peace deal that would re-configure the territories under the ARMM jurisdiction to include a dozen more barangay units plus the so-called Ancestral

Domain of the Moros, the House of Representatives was bombed which resulted in the death of a prominent Muslim politician.  Observations had it that bringing the violence outside of Mindanao is a sure-fire formula of getting the attention of the national government to a peace process.

GMA’s congressional allies deftly cobbled the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) but the measure was struck down by the Supreme Court faster than one could utter secession or dismemberment.

The same fate is seen to meet the BBL according to legal luminaries like former retired Supreme Court Justices Vicente Mendoza and Florentino Feliciano, both constitutionalist experts.  According to these honorable jurists, the Senate version of the BBL contemplates the creation of a Muslim sub-state which is anathema to the Constitution.

Congressman Rufus Rodriguez, chairman of the House ad hoc committee on the BBL is saying the panel will purge the measure of its constitutional flaws but in the sense that he cannot single-handedly subdue the powers of the administration, Senate President Franklin Drilon is more realistic when he said that the Senate will deliver the BBL in time for President Aquino’s penultimate State of the Nation Address in June.

“What kind of food do you eat?” This question is a funny  Pinoy expression that suggests  irritation over a stupid action.

Public sentiment against the BBL after the Mamasapano massacre is all over  social networks, broadcast and written commentaries.  Even if the people have as yet to push the envelope in pouring their grief and rage into a critical mass that will unseat a President, their patience had already been pushed beyond the limits that it is wise for government leaders to step back and discern this time in our political life.

“What kind of food do you eat?” captures our frustration when the administration prioritizes the BBL over getting to the bottom of the Mamasapano bloodbath, addressing poverty, breakdown of peace and order, lack of basic services, or replacing the vacancies in critical government institutions like the PNP.

The BBL has a litany of constitutional violations but in case the administration thinks the MILF is stupid enough to accept an invalid measure, it has another thing coming.

One  instructive articles on the issue of peace in Mindanao in the context of a political struggle by separatist movements was written by Manolo Quezon in August 2008.

In “The Agreement Itself is the Prize” Quezon discussed the repercussions of the MOA-AD which was about to be initialed in the Malaysian capital by the Philippine  government and MILF peace panels in the presence of foreign dignitaries led by the US envoy to the Philippines and some foreign peace keepers.

According to Quezon, “So even if the agreement begins to unravel almost immediately upon signing, or even if it moves forward but ends up derailed either at the congressional level or in a plebiscite, we should consider the possibility that the government has already made it possible for the MILF to secure one of its most crucial objectives: legitimization abroad.”

“The MILF will be able to tell the Muslim world that it has what up to now only the much-diminished MNLF could claim to possess: a formal agreement with the Philippine government. The proposed agreement, after all, says the MILF will gain its much-sought-after observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conference; and that, in itself, confers such prestige and access to official Islamic channels as to make the whole agreement, even if it fails, an MILF achievement. The agreement, too, establishes a precedent, requiring all future administrations to meet its provisions as the minimum basis for future peace talks.”

Mr. Quezon’s take on the issue at that time rings true today. I wonder if he is still working in the Press Office because he can certainly give some people a lot of sober thinking.