LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

News reporting garbage /Secret ARMM deal
MARCH L. FIANZA

To help quell the garbage problem, Baguio residents would have to do their share by minimizing their waste. Segregate one bulk that stays in the house for garden uses, while another bulk goes out to be dumped by the city’s trucks somewhere. Do not ask where because at this time, even the authorities do not have the answer to that.

The last dump site was in Capas, Tarlac but that was halted after our officials argued about where to source out the funds to pay the trucks of Metro Waste for hauling our garbage. While they argue, garbage pile up everywhere in the city.

Talking about Baguio as a mountain resort and tourism city by the way, I wonder how the business sector absorbs the problem, especially the hotels and restaurants – considering that they produce a large amount of the waste. I wish someone could tell us where and how their wastes are treated. Are they hauled to Tarlac too?

I do wonder because many businessmen look at city problems in terms of their profit. I hope they do not again complain against the media for their reportage, just like they did when the city was hit with the dreaded meningococcymia disease some years ago.

Please spare the newsman who is merely performing a duty. It is far better to inform the tourists of the actual situation of a destination, rather than letting them find out the truth the moment they arrive here. And there is no way that a newsman can fake the news about garbage for the sake of having continuous tourist arrivals.
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If not for news reportage, we may not have come across these things that were by design kept away from the public. With all the secret deals our government entered into in the past, I now have the feeling that those involved think we no longer care or this administration thinks it can get away with things. Now, isn’t that alarming considering that even the Justices in our courts are now having “secret deals?”

To name some of the government’s secrets, we had the “hello Garci,” the Jocjoc Bolante multi-billion peso fertilizer scam, the China ZTE-NBN overprice, the China northrail project and the secret importation of China vegetables that hurt our local farmers. Secretive arms deals also took place between China and Sudan , even after the UN arms embargo in 2005. World news reported last week that China supplied Sudan with the Dong Feng military armored trucks and Chinese Phantom K5 and K8 fighter jets that were used by the latter to attack Darfur , its neighbor in the African region.

Of course, Baguio and Benguet had their share of “secret” deals in their own backyard. The Metro Waste garbage haul is nothing compared to the P1.9 billion Benguet-Viscaya road rehab that suddenly changed its programs because the money was reduced to P1.4 billion at the time of its actual implementation. According to inside sources, the Chinese contractor had to cut the funding to satisfy a Lolo in Malacanang.

Watch out, the Abatan-Cervantes road rehab that is being done by a China contractor seems to be surrounded with secret deals by local officials involved in illegal construction activities. Now don’t tell me every transaction with the Chinese is illegal. I do not wish to hurt the feelings of Chong Loi and many Chinese-Igorot mestizo friends and relatives.
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While we seek out solutions to the garbage problem in Luzon, people in Mindanao are about to see garbage too. This is about a questionable “secret” MOA that may probably become a mere scrap of paper or garbage in another form.

If North Cotabato Vice Gov Manny Pinol and other Mindanao politicians suppressed the news about the MOA, it could have been signed and could have secretly placed many parts of Mindanao under a new set up called the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity – Ancestral Domain or BJE – AD.

After it was broached by media, the government panel immediately made clarifications saying that “nothing is final even after signing, until such time that congress passed a suitable law and until a plebiscite is held.” But one of the Mindanao mayors asked, “why put the horse before the cart (the signing) if the government says it needs congressional action and a plebiscite after all?”.

Being uninformed about the MOA, how could we in Luzon complain about that when even our Muslim brothers who were to be directly affected were not knowledgeable of it? The document maybe good as it was crafted to cater to peace but the MILF panel lacked the authority to represent altogether the communities occupying the lands that were almost relinquished, if signed.

Provincial, municipal, barangay officials and their constituents that were included in the BJE – AD were not consulted. So that the MNLF, Tausugs, Maranaos, and Christianized indigenous tribes do not feel, much less, want to be represented by the MILF panel. In fact, the MILF itself is splintered as proven by the uncontrolled armed invasion of barangays in Gov. Pinol’s province recently.

The “peace” MOA was a document waiting to be crumpled, but on the other hand, it could have been alright if a wider cross-section in Mindanao were first consulted. But it looked like the negotiating panels were afraid to involve more personalities for fear that a big group, to include politicians, would be uncontrollable and would only delay already calculated moves.

The MOA, BJE ancestral domain and calculated moves in Mindanao look familiar as far as the Cordillera autonomy is concerned. When the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army signed a peace agreement with the government in 1986, the signatories assumed that they were “speaking for every Cordilleran.”

Instead, it gave rise to a new opposition to Cordillera autonomy in the person of Benguet Gov. Ben Palispis and the other governors who were earlier replaced by appointed OICs. Twenty-two years after the peace agreement we have yet to see an autonomous Cordillera region or a Cordillera ancestral domain.

And even as the BJE – AD has yet to attain true recognition, some MILF groups have already started flying their own flag, according to Gov. Pinol. Sooner or later, they will be drafting their own basic law, education system, trade and currency. What more, the MOA gives the BJE a separate representative to the UN, a sovereign privilege of the Philippines .

Citing all of the above, signing a secret MOA to set up the Bangsamoro ancestral domain is no guarantee that peace could be attained. Mindanao ’s educated leaders, the church, the MNLF chair and more reasonable MILF heads said it a hundred times that stopping the exploitation of natural resources by influential government allies, getting rid of poverty and illiteracy and an “unconditional” delivery of development by the central government are the better means to attaining peace. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com