The inchoate Bangsamoro Juridical Entity is the generic name of Iraq

Yes the GRP will not lose our sovereignty over Mindanao, but let us not be surprised when, as virtually a caretaker government, the Arroyo administration finds it necessary to stay in power with the pretext of upholding peace and order in the territory of the Bangsamoro.

Just how close have they studied the consequences of the preliminary agreement to be signed tomorrow by Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front? Are the silenced people of the Moro “homeland” prepared to see themselves under a brand new government of military oligarchs who for years have stood their grounds against each other? The absence of an apparent leader will result to a war of factions similar to that froth of hostilities already brewing and spewing in Baghdad. The government who would be closely monitoring the juridical state endowed with a regional security force (that would surely be used as clannish or partisan bodyguards) will find it soon imperative to sound an alarm after threats of infantile destabilization in the Bangsamoro, paving the way to more breakaway groups and imminent extremism.

To understand the future of Mindanao we must understand its present status. The numbers of dissenting groups have long lurked in the shadows, and they are waiting for the slackening of the Moro ties to the GRP before they re-emerge into the political battlegrounds. History has it that what they cannot attain by law they struggle to take hold by force. I wonder how many of the 712 villages fear the same.

Indeed, whatever decision emanates from their partial plebiscite it would certainly bear the reflection of a people’s fear of the ensuing chaos or support to their faction, but rarely hope. The Bangsamoro Juridical Entity designed to satisfy the MILF fighting for ancestral domains is no more than mere appeasement to the rebels and without any clear benefit to the people of Mindanao.

The fact that the people of Mindanao cannot integrate themselves into one society with solidarity disproves what a columnist once told me about them feeling more of a nation than northern Filipinos. How come. Just like Christians, Muslims do have irreconcilable warlords contesting interminably over an awful lot of reasons such as patches of land, supremacy and hegemony, familial friction or even want of revenge. They don’t seem capable of being a nation inasmuch as they kill their own blood, and abduct their own kin, appearing more like fortified islets with cannons pointed at each other. With such disposition they cannot be successful in integrating themselves into one society built around unity despite diversity. There is no commonality. The acrid fumes of dissension tend towards warfare, terrorism and separation. These are the signs of a new Baghdad, a new Iraq.

The Arroyo government will probably have the advantage in this issue. By Jove, she will have the reason to declare a state of emergency as her political alarmists ring amidst the escalated tension in the chaotic Mindanao, some presumptions of secession for instance or terror metastasizing to the north, and therefore achieve the legitimacy of suspending the elections in 2010!