Jun Mercado, OMI
There is a heated “debate” on whether the present officers in charge (both in the executive and regional legislative assembly) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao should file the certificates of candidacy (COC) for the 2013 ARMM Elections on not. The “source” of the debate is the expressed desire of the President during the search for OICs that the “appointees” should NOT run for the scheduled ARMM Elections in May 2013.
There is NO legal impediment for the present OICs to file their COCs for the May 2013 Elections. The OICs’ hesitation to pursue the filing of their COCs flows from the articulated wish of the President. They believe that as OICs they, too, serve at the pleasure of the President.
The problem occurs, because the intended reforms in the ARMM bureaucracy actually work or are beginning to bear fruit. The President himself has recognized the ARMM OIC Governor as “Ghostbuster” in his 2012 SONA. Governor Mujiv Hataman has faced squarely the prevailing malaise in the bureaucracy and issue of ghost teachers, ghost employees, ghost projects, ghost schools and ghost pupils/students.
The ARMM bureaucracy has become functional by simple introduction of biometrics for the daily time record, direct payments of salaries through the employees’ ATMs, and adopting a policy of transparency through the use of computer portal where projects, programs and transactions in the ARMM are accessible for proper accounting.
What would happen now…? Would the President abandon the reform track and abandon the ARMM electoral contest between and among the clans and trapos again…? Would a simple wish that was stated during the search for the OIC be the paramount consideration for the ARMM Elections in May 2013?
The normal way is for the administration to consolidate the gains of reforms and allow the people of the ARMM become the final arbiter whether or not the reforms truly respond to their dreams and aspiration.
The discussion among civil society and other stakeholders in the ARMM lies precisely on the issue of allowing the ARMM constituents to decide and approve or disapprove the reform platform during the May 2013 Elections. By doing so, the ARMM constituents would have the real say on the ongoing ARMM reforms and on the team that banners the said new politics.
Moreover, the May 2013 ARMM Elections should NOT be taken as separate issues from the ongoing peace talks with the MILF. In the likelihood of an agreement, the outcome would be the drafting of a new Basic Law (Organic Act) that would pave the way for the “birthing” of a New Autonomous Political Entity (NAPE) that would take the place of the ARMM.
The so-called transitional period and the transitional mechanism that would come out of any agreement between the GPH and the MILF should all happen within the “time” of the present Aquino Presidency, that is, until end of June 2016. Beyond 2016, the President cannot commit anything.
It is crucial that the “winners” in the ARMM Elections in 2013 would NOT be obstacles to the bigger picture of “entrenching the New Autonomous Political Entity.” Concretely it would mean the passage of the New Basic law, the plebiscite, the determination of the coverage of the NAPE, and the “transitional” mechanism should be in place by 2015.
It is “desired” that the May 2016 elections in the NAPE would take place on the basis of a new Basic Law.
In the real measurement of things, what are at stake and in peril in the present ARMM Elections are not only the reforms taking place in the bureaucracy but the bigger picture of peace and the possible birthing of a new government structure. It is the hope and prayer that the NAPE truly empowers the peoples not only on their local affairs but also on the control and supervision of the resources within their ancestral domain.
Institute for Autonomy & Governance 