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Press Statement
15 August 2008
PRETENSE AT GENEROSITY WITH FULL MALICE
BY US IMPERIALISM AND THE ARROYO REGIME
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has consistently
supported the Moro people's right to self-determination. This ranges from
the right to regional autonomy in a nonoppressive state to the right to
secede from the oppressive state that exists in the Philippines. Even an
individual who finds himself or herself oppressed by a state has the right
to separate from it.
In a manner of speaking, the Filipino people and revolutionary forces
within the framework of the NDFP and the growing revolutionary organs of
political power have seceded or separated themselves from the oppressive
semicolonial and semifeudal state system that is ruled by the comprador
big bourgeoisie and landlord class and are striving to build the new
people's democratic state system that is based on the alliance of the
toiling masses of workers and peasants and the middle social strata.
When I read the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that was supposed to be
signed by representatives of the MILF and the Government of the Republic
of the Philippines (GRP) in Malaysia on August 5, 2008, I thought
immediately that the contents which appeared to recognize and concretize
the Bangsamoro's right to self-determination and ancestral domain were too
good and too generous to be true. The MOA was so contrary to the greedy
and brutal character of the GRP, whose presumptions and actuations I have
long known in the course of revolutionary struggle and the GRP-NDFP peace
negotiations.
It was almost predictable that the signing of the MOA would be aborted.
The public release of the draft only a few days before the date of signing
was clearly meant to stir up a controversy big enough to cause the
abortion. Had the Arroyo regime really meant to push through the MOA, it
should have worked it out with the MILF and other interested parties at
the latest within the first half of the year or even late last year. But
the MOA was never meant to be, either to be signed or to be realized, as
GRP officials would reveal.
Top subalterns of the fake and mendacious president such as Ermita,
Esperon and Dureza declared that the MOA was just a piece of paper,
subject to existing GRP laws, further legislation and constitutional
amendment. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. , whom they had consulted all along,
also confirmed that the MOA was nothing more than a piece of paper,
despite the regime's rather expensive much ado about it.
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The patriotic and progressive
forces and the people are reasonably concerned that the MOA had been
devised by the untrustworthy and sneaky Arroyo as a way for pushing a
charter change to allow her to stay in power beyond 2010, without really
having to give substantial concessions to the MILF. But they must look
further into the obnoxious joint objectives of the US government (together
with the Japanese and Australian governments) and the Arroyo regime in
seeming to be for the MOA and making the MILF believe that the GRP was
serious about signing this.
Under the direction of the US State Department, the US Institute of Peace
has been busy in carrying out the Philippine Facilitation Project since
2003 in order to help produce something like the MOA. It is obvious that
the US has been out to sidle up to and ingratiate itself with the MILF and
the Bangsamoro in order to further strengthen its position in exploiting
the human and natural resources of the Bangsamoro and deploying US
military forces in Mindanao.
At this point, the question is: With the signing aborted, is the MOA still
useful to the major parties directly involved in drafting or facilitating
it? The MILF can continue to use the MOA as a standard or minimum basis
for negotiating with the GRP. The GRP or the Arroyo regime can also use
the same thing for putting off serious formal negotiations with the MILF
and for hyping the need for charter change. Unilaterally or in cahoots
with the GRP, the US can use the high expectations raised by the MOA among
the MILF and Bangsamoros to justify US military presence and advance US
hegemony in Mindanao.
Certainly, such expectations can never be realised through the kindness of
the US and the GRP and without the persevering struggle of the Moro
people. The GRP and its imperialist masters are merely using the MOA as a
device of pretended generosity to MILF in order to seize the propaganda
initiative, to prolong GRP-MILF informal talks and ceasefire and to deploy
larger US and Philippine military forces against the MILF and the
Bangsamoro.
The pretense at generosity is full of malice. It is calculated to outwit
and outflank the MILF and the Bangsamoro and to facilitate frontal
military attacks against them. They are being left no choice but to wage
revolutionary struggle in order to advance their cause of national
self-determination. There is a heightened need for the unity, cooperation
of the MILF and the NDFP in their distinct and common concerns and causes
against the same adversaries. ###
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