SC Declares GRP-MILF MOA-AD Unconstitutional

The Government and the MILF were scheduled to sign a Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) aspect of the GRP-MILF Tripoli Agreement on Peace of 2001 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The GRP-MILF agreement is the result of a formal peace talks between the parties in Tripoli, Libya in 2001. The pertinent provisions in the MOA-AD provides for the establishment of an associative relationship between the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) and the Central Government. It speaks of the relationship between the BJE and the Philippine government as “associative,” thus implying an international relationship and therefore suggesting an autonomous state. Furthermore, under the MOA-AD, the GRP Peace Panel guarantees that necessary amendments to the Constitution and the laws will eventually be put in place. Is the said MOA-AD constitutional?

ANSWER:

No. The SC ruled that the MOA-AD cannot be reconciled with the present Constitution and laws. Not only its specific provisions but the very concept underlying them, namely, the associative relationship envisioned between the GRP and the BJE, are unconstitutional, for the concept presupposes that the associated entity is a state and implies that the same is on its way to independence, it said. Moreover, as the clause is worded, it virtually guarantees that the necessary amendments to the Constitution and the laws will eventually be put in place. Neither the GRP Peace Panel nor the President herself is authorized to make such a guarantee. Upholding such an act would amount to authorizing a usurpation of the constituent powers vested only in Congress, a Constitutional Convention, or the people themselves through the process of initiative, for the only way that the Executive can ensure the outcome of the amendment process is through an undue influence or interference with that process. While the MOA-AD would not amount to an international agreement or unilateral declaration binding on the Philippines under international law, respondents’ act of guaranteeing amendments is, by itself, already a constitutional violation that renders the MOA-AD fatally defective.

Justice Santiago said, among others, that the MOA-AD “contains provisions which are repugnant to the Constitution and which will result in the virtual surrender of part of the Philippines’ territorial sovereignty.” She further said that had the MOA-AD been signed by parties, “would have bound the government to the creation of a separate Bangsamoro state having its own territory, government, civil institutions, and armed forces…The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Philippines would have been compromised.” (GR No. 183591, Province of North Cotabato v. Republic, October 14, 2008)

Notes:

In this case, The Court explained that the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process committed grave abuse of discretion when he failed to carry out the pertinent consultation process, as mandated by EO No. 3, RA 7160, and RA 8371.

EO No. 3 is replete with mechanics for continuing consultations on both national and local levels and for a principal forum for consensus-building.

RA 7160 (the Local Government Code of 1991) requires all national offices to conduct consultations before any project or program critical to the environment and human ecology including those that may call for the eviction of a particular group of people residing in such locality, is implemented therein. The MOA-AD is one peculiar program that unequivocally and unilaterally vests ownership of a vast territory to the Bangsamoro people, which could pervasively and drastically result to the diaspora or displacement of a great number of inhabitants from their total environment.

RA 8371 (the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997) provides for clear-cut procedure for the recognition and delineation of ancestral domain, which entails, among other things, the observance of the free and prior informed consent (FPIC) of the Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples. (GR No. 183591, Province of North Cotabato v. Republic, October 14, 2008)