Moribund

This was a death that took too long to acknowledge.

Last week, the Speaker of the House and then the President of the Senate formally announced the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) is dead. Eventually, perhaps reluctantly, the Palace conceded to the political fact – finally giving up, so to speak, on the ghost.

None of the statements made the headlines. It was stale news. We knew a year ago this divisive and probably unconstitutional piece of legislation would not survive the legislative grind.

Even if it somehow did, the measure will be trapped in the courts. It would linger there for many years, adding to the immense public cost already incurred for a political project that would have deepened enmity rather than enhanced the peace.

When Mamasapano happened a year ago, we all knew in our guts that the last casualty of this carnage was the BBL itself. Those who supported the measure lost heart. Those who opposed the measure gained political ground.

Only the Palace, perhaps only the President himself, exercised self-deception. Legislators were summoned. Caucuses were held. Pressure was applied. Promises were made.

In the end, the ugly concept could not be delivered live.

At the House, Palace surgeons performed only cosmetic surgery on the despicable bill. None of the features altered cured the basic defect. The congressmen, hemmed in by Palace pressure on one hand and the opinion of their constituents on the other, chose to vote with their feet: walking away from the sessions and thereby denying the opportunity to deliberate the bill with any seriousness.

At the more independent Senate, the entire measure was reconfigured. BBL metamorphosed into something else: a bill so different from the Palace version it would take years to reconcile with whatever passes the House.

As we lay this legislative episode to rest, we can only wonder at the amount of stupidity invested in it.

Until the death of the BBL was finally pronounced by the leaders of both chambers, Aquino seemed to be clinging on naively to the hope the bill would somehow pass, railroaded even. His congressional leaders must have heaped on him false assurances. Either he did not have his ear closer to the ground or was prone to his own delusions.

In both chambers, there was no real enthusiasm for this measure. Legislators were merely going through the motions, trying very hard not to displease their benefactor. At the slightest resistance, legislators abandoned the bill.

After the BBL was pronounced dead, Aquino tried hard to save face by instructing the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process to continue the work beyond his presidential term. That was an odd instruction. When he is no longer president, the dynamics of the peace process changes dramatically.

It is not peace that will be abandoned. It is Aquino’s idea that peace might be won by a policy of appeasement towards the MILF that will be quickly dislodged.    

For its part, the MILF tried to save face by blaming the fiasco on Aquino’s lack of political will to see the project through. Even that assessment might be debatable.

We are not sure about the matter of political will. We are sure Aquino did not invest the work ethic required to pull this political project off.

Wrong-footed

This entire enterprise about setting up a “substate” for the MILF to govern started off on the wrong foot.

Early in his term, Aquino flew off to Japan surreptitiously. In the vicinity of the Tokyo airport (we were never told exactly where), the freshly minted Philippine president met with leaders of a rebel movement (effectively granting them belligerency status). Some money was handed over to the rebel leaders from some discretionary fund that ought to be subjected to audit procedures eventually.

Congress, which was expected to pass the law to realize the project of establishing a substate, was not consulted ahead of this secretive meeting. The role of Kuala Lumpur in setting up this high-level political tryst was never fully explained.

At any rate, panels representing the Philippine government and the MILF met continuously as delegations of equal stature. The meetings were exclusive, almost illicit. The other stakeholders in this process were not involved, not even consulted: the MNLF, the indigenous peoples and the Christian communities to be enveloped by a “Bangsamoro.”

When no one was looking, a “comprehensive agreement” between the two negotiating panels was announced. The event was graced by the now disgraced Malaysian prime minister, now under investigation for harboring a huge slush fund in his personal accounts. The chair of the Philippine negotiating panel was quickly rewarded with a seat at the Supreme Court.

The Palace seemed to presume that since the tone was set by the “comprehensive agreement,” Congress would willingly dance to the tune. They did not, as we now know. The politicians proved more skillful at evasive maneuver than the Palace thought.

Meanwhile, the Palace unleashed bullying propaganda against those opposing the BBL. Those opposing the measure, the propaganda line argued, were therefore opposed to peace.

That was a smear campaign, not a campaign for public support. It was a negative campaign, not an affirmative one. It drew no new support for a beleaguered political project.

In addition, MILF leaders were strutting about, behaving like it was the nation’s responsibility to cede them power. From the margins, they were publicly vetoing amendments legislators wanted introduced to make the bill more palatable. Their intransigence did not endear them to a wary nation.

The BBL, in the end, died an expected death. It was not the solution to the problem.