Palace has bad power to give away forests

After vainly justifying for a month its Memo of Agreement-Ancestral Domain with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Malacañang changed tack. The Solicitor General claimed at the Supreme Court that President Arroyo never saw the accord that would have ceded territory to Moro separatists. Critics, however, saw through the ploy of making the control-freak Arroyo look like her peace advisers had pulled a fast one on her. The Palace must be sensing that it won’t get a 9-6 majority to uphold the territorial pact as it did in Romy Neri’s executive privilege in the NBN-ZTE scam. If the SC rules as unconstitutional an Arroyo-approved MOA-AD, she will face yet another impeachment rap. Quashing it might not be as easy as before via pork barrel releases. Mindanao Christian congressmen would find it hard to acquit a President who sides with murderous Moro rebels. It could spell political doom, for no Christian candidate ever won election on a platform for Moro homeland.

The Sol-Gen’s stand on the MOA-AD today is as odd as in a case two years ago related to both ancestral domains and ZTE Inc., also at the SC. In that 2006 fight with paper maker Picop over Diwalwal, the Sol-Gen raised an inexistent rule that timber licensees must thenceforth get clearance from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. This supposedly was to verify if a forest reserve lies within an ancestral claim, or private communal property of ethnic tribesmen. The Sol-Gen line contradicted the doctrine it has upheld for decades — that forests are inalienable under the Constitution. The turnaround then was as convenient as today’s President-never-read-it flip-flop. In July 2006 Malacañang had signed with ZTE a $4-billion investment package that included the national broadband network, plus mining in Diwalwal and North Davao. The Palace had to push aside Picop’s forest right to bring the Chinese firm into the Diwalwal gold rush. As exposed earlier, the consequent talk was for a 90:10 profit sharing in favor of a foreigner constitutionally barred from the start from mining.

Meanwhile, the contrived rule of forest certification against ancestral claims gave the NCIP added power. The agency under the Office of the President does not even keep records of forests and tribal lands. But it now has authority to declare inalienable forests as ancestral domains. Meaning, Malacañang may now give away to “tribesmen” two-fifths of RP territory, or 12 million hectares of officially classified forests. Already the NCIP has issued private communal titles to a million hectares and is studying 2.5 million more. Who knows if the new applicants are legitimate tribesmen or plain carpetbaggers?

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Pictures don’t lie. A photo that the Army found in an MILF armory in Maguindanao shows mid-teen boys being trained to wield rifles. Reprinted in The STAR front page Thursday, it confirms what peaceniks have long been decrying—that Moro separatists are using child soldiers, in breach of UN conventions.

Child conscription defies human rights. Kids should be in school, not working in farms or factories, and certainly not marching with professional fighters. War games deprive child soldiers of play-acting to become firemen or pilots or doctors. As the Army brass explains, they’re fair game once they start shooting at government troops.

Hard pressed for recruits, secessionists and communist rebels ignore UN rules (including a ban on land mines, cripplers of countless Afghans). In raw minds, meanwhile, war is adventure. Penurious parents even push kids to enlist as cadres or mujahedin. In a hungry brood, one child going off to war is one less mouth to feed. The youth soldier gets a rifle, the ultimate symbol of power, plus a stipend, food and cigarettes.

Unformed in moral society, child soldiers tend to be abusive. In 1980s Cambodia the press found a band of armed teens ruling the countryside by terror. Mostly youth conscripts pirate oil tankers off the Somali coast. MILF teenagers brutally behead children, women and the aged reportedly while high on shabu.

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It may be too late to save the separatist babes in training in The STAR picture. But we can help prevent more kids of Moros — or Ilagas — from joining violence, by simply donating reading materials.

Journalist-turned-restaurateur Armand Nocum is heading a books-for-gun drive to flood Mindanao with books and magazines. The aim is to enlighten Muslim and Christian children in war zones to the brighter future awaiting them if they pick up a book instead of a gun. Reading opens doors to a bigger world out there.

Armand, a Christian, and Muslim Tausog wife Annora picked up the idea from common experience in Zamboanga City. As toddlers in separate parts of the city, they learned to read from old newspapers brought home as fish wrapper from the market. Books consequently turned them into professionals. Through their Satti Grill House in SM-Fairview Food Court, Quezon City, and on Del Pilar corner Padre Faura Sts. in Ermita, Manila, they introduce mostly Christian diners to southern Muslim treats. The only battle there is between Christian and Muslim diners is who can eat more of spicy satay.

The Nocums call their project A-book-Saya Group, a play of words on the dreaded Abu Sayyaf Group. “Sharing books could stop one more potential terrorist or rebel from taking up guns or bombs,” they say. “It would be fulfilling.” Their two bistro branches have been designated as initial drop-off centers. Donors may contact them at landlines (02) 7992745 or 3393732, mobiles 0917-5208013 or 0919-5897879, and www.sattisfaction.blogspot.com or [email protected].

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