No harm, no foul

Malacañang is singing that tune again, this time in connection with the bungled Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) that it tried/had very much wanted to sign with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) early last month. Just like the national broadband network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp., the government tried to sneak it by Congress and the people (but not some diplomats who were invited to witness the supposed signing in Kuala Lumpur and who ended up enjoying a holiday there instead) by not revealing the terms of the memorandum beforehand, and just offering it up after the fact as a fait accompli, a “jewel in the crown” of peace in Mindanao.

Unfortunately for the government, it has not learned its lesson – nothing can be kept a secret (at least not for long) in this country. Before you could say “Bangsamoro Juridical Entity,” copies of the MOA-AD were circulating, and the terms of the MOA were revealed to any and all who exercised a little initiative to get the information. I remember very early on – in July, when there were only hints about the document – questioning our reporter on how sure he was about the facts in his story, he told me that he had a copy of the MOA and would I want him to fax a copy over.

Subsequently, other documents surfaced – the report of the U.S. Institute of Peace on the situation in Mindanao, letters written by MILF founder Hashim Salamat to the U.S. president claiming a Bangsamoro homeland based on two ancient treaties, the 1898 Treaty of Paris and the 1899 Bates Treaty…. In other words, the cat – plus the entire litter of kittens – was out of the bag and running all over the place.

Now the government says the Supreme Court, before which cases challenging the MOA-AD were filed, no longer needs to decide or act on those cases, since the MOA-AD “in its present form or in any other form” will no longer be signed – let’s just forget about the whole thing, pretend it never happened, and move on. Just like the anomalous NBN-ZTE deal – which was subsequently cancelled anyway so there is no more need to look into it, and certainly no need to find out whose fingers dipped into that sweet pie.

Between discussing the differences between mono and poly – I will not say what in the interest of peace and goodwill to all men, and women–– over lunch recently with The STAR editors, Senator Mar Roxas was insistent and emphatic that the Supreme Court must render a decision on the constitutionality or un- of the MOA-AD – and he’s absolutely right. The government put this forth as an official document, even initialed it’– now whether the ones who initialed it had authority to do so or not is another problem all together–– and if it indeed contains provisions that go against our Constitution, then it must be clearly and unequivocally stated. And from there, those responsible for crafting, agreeing to, approving and/or initialing the document must be held accountable. Just because it was not signed is not the point; just as the non-implementation of the NBN-ZTE deal is not the point. The point, in both cases, is that they were caught, and their having been caught was the only reason the MOA was not signed, and the NBN deal was not implemented.

If, once again, we allow this to pass under the ‘no harm, no foul” concept, then we might as well not bother with the Constitution, and all our laws for that matter.