PIKIT, Cotabato - A group of Mindanao-based church leaders, multi-sectoral organizations and tri-people groups of people on Tuesday said they want their voices heard when the Supreme Court resumes hearings on the controversial Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on Ancestral Domain (AD).
Among those who want their voices heard in a "Comment-in-Intervention" that will be filed at the SC on Wednesday are an Oblate priest, Muslim ustadzes, representatives of student organizations, health workers, teachers, evacuees and indigenous peoples.
"We, the victims of the war, must be heard because all those debating their on the MOA on AD are government officials,"the group said.
The SC has already started its hearings last Friday, August 15, with only one lawyer of at least four groups of petitioners heard.
Among those who sought the High Court to restrain the government from signing the MOA on AD last August 5 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are Cotabato Vice-governor Manny Pinol, Zamboanga Mayor Celso Lobregat, Senator Manuel Roxas II and former Sen. Franklin Drilon.
Respondents to the petition of Pinol, Rojas, Lobregat and Drilon are also government officials in the person of the government peace panel members headed by retired general Rodolfo Garcia.
Timuay Melanio Ulama, a T'duray leader from North Upi in Maguindanao, who is also a signatory to the Comment-in-Intervention, appealed to the justices of the SC to consider and give due weight to their voices.
"We, the poor people who are the ones living within the conflict areas of Mindanao, are the ones who have suffered a lot and are suppose to benefit from peace,"he added.
"We no longer want other people to talk on our behalf, so please do not listen to the assimilated Lumads who have allowed themselves to be used by politicians," Ulama said as he also lambasted Pinol for not consulting the Lumads when he filed his petition for TOR at the Supreme Court.
Butch Gilman, a staff of the Inter-religious Dialogue Program (IRDP) of the Immaculate Conception Parish of this town, was another signatory of the Comment-in-Intervention.
"We are the ones who have suffered the wars a lot since the 70s. We have been working very hard for peace in Mindanao. The MOA on AD has opened the door towards meaningful peace and our sufferings simply tell us to grab this golden opportunity,"Gilman said.
At the office of the IRDP, where other church workers, barangay officials and civic leaders also signed the document to be submitted at the SC at 3:00 p.m. Wednesday.
Gilman, who admitted he was a fighter of the Moro National Liberation Front in the late 70s, said that the "government officials opposing the MOA on AD have baseless fears that their vast landholdings in Mindanao would be taken away from them."
He cited the "vast lands of the Lobregats in Lanao del Sur and the wide agricultural plantations of the Pinols in North Cotabato."
Tanny Mandas, vice chairman of Ginapalad-Taka Zone of Peace in this town, on the other hand, said that his decision to sign the Comment-in-Intervention "is our contribution to the peace movement that has now elevated the peace struggle to a legal struggle" at the SC.
Ginapalad-Taka represents the barangays of Ginatilan, Nalapaan, Panicupan, Ladtingan, Dalingawen, Takepan and Kalakacan, the seven-member barangays of the peace zone called G7.
Mandas, who is barangay chair of Panicupan here, claimed that "the ordinary people in North Cotabato are really for peace support the government and MILF's efforts towards finding an agreement that may help peace reign in this troubled land."
Bukhari Ahmad, a Muslim leader in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat failed to sign the Comment-in-Intervention but he said "those who are against the MOA on AD are greedy politicians who managed to gain some support from among few Christians because of their deceptive rhetoric."
"Text messages circulated were very deceptive. They did not even say a thing about the content of the MOA. Some of these are those that said the lands of the Christians will be confiscated by the Morosthat the Christians will be driven away back to the Visayas," Ahmad said.
He also lambasted Senators Drilon and Rojas for "dipping their fingers into this issue without even reviewing their history. I think they simply jumped into supporting their fellow Ilonggo in the person of Pinol without even understanding what the real issues are down here. I doubt if they have read the MOA on AD." - GMANews.TV