President Aquino has committed treason

The draft of the Bangsamoro Basic Law that President Benigno Aquino 3rd gave Congress ignores the Republic of the Philippines, the Constitution and us the Filipino people.

This does not surprise us. The Framework Agreement and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the two previous foundational documents signed by President Aquino’s negotiators and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front panel, and which President Aquino approved, also virtually mocked us Filipinos and our most important laws and symbols. The original draft of the BBL that the MILF gave the Palace was so full of veritably anti-Philippine Republic and anti-Constitution contents that President Aquino had his people revise it—to the displeasure of his friends, the MILF supreme leaders.

As we have said in this space many times before, the creation of a Bangsamoro state—and not a region of the Philippine like the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or the Cordillera Autonomous Region—is subversive of the Philippine Republic. It will lead to the dismemberment of our country.

The BBL lays the foundation for the separation of the Bangsamoro state—or the state of the Moro nation—from the Philippine Republic.

Instead of containing a provision that forbids secession—as any patriotic and competent President of the Philippines (or any country) would have insisted to have in the Framework Agreement, the CAB and now this Basic Law or mini-Constitution of the Moro state, the present BBL version even contains provisions that encourage the MILF Moros who will run their Bangsamoro state to pursue separation and independence.

This encouragement to achieve the final objective of the separatist MILF is in the BBL’s Section 1 of Article IV which says: “In the exercise of its right to self-governance and self-determination, the Bangsamoro is free to pursue its economic, social and cultural development.”

Yes, all Moros, and for that matter all Filipinos, are free to pursue their economic, social and cultural development. But not to exercise their right to run their provinces or cities to achieve “self-governance and self-determination.” Filipinos are bound to being governed by the constitutionally approved governors and authorities and are not to pursue self-determination. Only those who aim to dismantle the Philippine Republic do so.

The MILF authors of the proposed BBL—and we have said this in previous editorials—do not consider themselves Filipinos or persons subject to the Constitution of the Philippines. That is why the BBL treats our Constitution, our Republic and us Filipinos as non-existent beings.

President Aquino—and his men and women in Malacañang who supported his moves—therefore committed nothing less than treason when they handed over this treasonous BBL draft to the Congress of the Philippines.

This is another count to be included in the people’s impeachment case against Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino. Editorial, The Manila Times