BASIC POINT: We keep asking – because we have not found the answer – if the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is indeed the proper Muslim representative to negotiate a contract with the government and write a “Basic Law” leading to the creation of a Bangsamoro state in the South.

This basic point should have been settled before the government panel sat down with the MILF in a so-called “peace process” that has produced a draft Memorandum of Agreement on an “ancestral domain” for the envisioned Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.

The MILF’s credentials must be ascertained before action is taken by the Supreme Court on a petition questioning the validity of the proposed MoA and the stealthy steps taken in negotiating it.

Until the MILF shows a credible document showing that it has been validly authorized to speak and sign for the Muslim population, the MoA and everything related to it should be laid aside as mere scraps of paper.

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UNDER DURESS: What is our assurance that government negotiators were not talking to the wrong party as they searched for a just and lasting peace in Moroland?

The government should have been smart enough to sense that the small rebel band talking to it with guns cocked merely assumed the role of representative of the Muslim population through the use of force or the threat of violence.

The government appears to be acting under duress (sounds like “dureza”) – which is another reason why the MoA should be rejected on its face.

We have no assurance that, after the MILF and the MNLF (the Moro National Liberation Front of Nur Misuari) before it, no other Muslim group would grab center stage, throw political tantrum and demand for its own slice of the Philippine pizza.

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BALLOT, NOT BULLET: The elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao offer an escape from this endless parade of alphabet-soup “liberation fronts” blackmailing the government.

Discounting the sporadic incidents, which were expected, Muslim Mindanao has just elected in a generally clean and credible process leaders who have won a mandate through the ballot, not through the bullet.

Note that while the democratic polling was taking place, heavily armed MILF groups were creating mayhem elsewhere.

As soon as practicable, the government should sit down and talk peace, progress and justice with the duly elected ARMM officials, not with the MILF.

Now you know why the MILF tried mightily to delay and subvert the ARMM elections – alas, with the connivance of the Arroyo administration.

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FEAR NO MORE: Many officials and even elements in media have hailed the ARMM elections as the proving ground of the hardware for the proposed automated national elections in 2010 (assuming there would be elections that year).

The uninitiated who see computers as magical marvels gush over the voting and counting machines that sped up the tabulation. Should not we pay tribute instead to the human spirit, the voters who turned out under trying conditions?

What we should emphasize in media and in official statements is that through the generally successful ARMM elections, Muslim Mindanao has spoken. It has chosen its true leaders and representatives.

The government, particularly Malacanang, should snap out of the fear that has misled it and start earnest talks with the authentic voice of Muslim Mindanao as ascertained by the ARMM elections.

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MOA TEXT: Meanwhile, here are MoA excerpts to help readers form intelligent opinion on the plan to carve a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity from the Philippine Republic:

The Bangsamoro homeland and historic territory refer to the land mass as well as the maritime, terrestrial, fluvial and alluvial domains, and the aerial domain, the atmospheric space above it, embracing the Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan geographic region.

The Bangsamoro people refers to those who are natives or original inhabitants of Mindanao and its adjacent islands including Palawan and the Sulu archipelago at the time of conquest or colonization of its descendants whether mixed or of full blood. Spouses and their descendants are classified as Bangsamoro.

Ownership of the homeland is vested exclusively in them by virtue of their prior rights of occupation that had inhered in them as sizeable bodies of people, delimited by their ancestors since time immemorial, and being the first politically organized dominant occupants.

(The Philippine government and the MILF) acknowledge that ancestral domain does not form part of the public domain but encompasses ancestral, communal, and customary lands, maritime, fluvial and alluvial domains as well all natural resources therein that have inured or vested ancestral rights on the basis of native title. Ancestral domain and ancestral land refer to those held under claim of ownership, occupied or possessed, by themselves or through the ancestors of the Bangsamoro people, communally or individually since time immemorial continuously to the present, except when prevented by war, civil disturbance, force majeure, or other forms of possible usurpation or displacement by force, deceit, stealth, or as a consequence of government project or any other voluntary dealings entered into by the government and private individuals, corporate entities or institutions.

(The Philippine government and the MILF) agree that the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity shall have the authority and jurisdiction over the Ancestral Domain and Ancestral Lands, including both alienable and non-alienable lands encompassed within their homeland and ancestral history, as well as the delineation of ancestral domain/lands of the Bangsamoro people located therein.