Concerned people are saying that it is timely for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to bring the Moro Problem to the United Nation International Court of Justice a day after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Thursday told a lobby group from Mindanao that government will no longer sign the initialed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

This peace process has totally collapsed already since the positions of the GRP and MILF on the initialed MOA-AD is apparently irreconcilable, Rexall Kaalim, Coordinator of the bantay Ceasefire, said.

The clamor is actually consistent with the MILF Chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim earlier stand. He restated that the MILF will “never renegotiate”the MOA-AD, which is a done deal. He said in an interview before he was filmed by Aljazeera in the jungles of Maguindanao one-and-a-half hours away from Cotabato City.

Murad said that "the MOA-AD had been subjected to long and several scrutiny" in the past four years that the peace panels of both camps were discussing it. "The government even hired experts to scrutinize the provisions of the MOA-AD. That is why we could not understand why it is only now that they say there are some flaws with it when in fact it took the panels more than four years to discuss ancestral domain alone," he said.

Malik “Abubasa” Mambuay, a radio broadcaster in Marawi City, said that the MILF is timely to bring the issue to the United Nation International Court of Justice after the final declaration of the GRP not to sign the MOA-AD. UN ICJ is the right forum to handle this issue… Bangsamoro struggle has been known one of the oldest struggle in the world and that Philippine government is now known for its deception policy realized after few years of talks with the MILF.

The same view was mentioned by Dr. Habib Macaayong, Professor of Management and Public Administration. He affirmed the need to bring the issue to ICJ for two reasons: 1) Non-signing by GRP is a blatant defiance of agreement which is considered universal malpractice, and 2) GRP unilaterally ignored ceasefire agreement by attacking and bombing Muslim villages that victimized women and children, hence this is a grave injustice committed.

The ICJ is the judicial organ of the United Nations. Established in 1945 by the UN Charter. The Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Court's main functions are to settle legal disputes submitted to it by member state and to give advisory opinions on legal questions submitted to it by duly authorized international organs, agencies and the UN General Assembly.

On Thursday, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon went to Malaysia as President Arroyo’s Special Envoy to Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, to hand over a personal letter “explaining the non-signing of the MOA-AD, and to discuss and explore ways of sustaining the peace process and other related issues in Mindanao.” Four massage points he relayed to MILF through the Malaysian facilitator. One, the peace process continues. Two, calmer and cooler MILF leaders must take control while Umbra Kato and Bravo must be turned into the Philippine authorities. Three, the MOA-AD will become a major reference, if and when the talks resume. And four, Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) must be frontloaded in the agenda of future talks, Esperon said.

Asked to comment on Esperon’s message, MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal told MindaNews on September 13 that he “can’t comment. We need official communication from Kuala Lumpur.”

The rights of all people, nations or communities to decide their final political status is an exercise of the right of self-determination. It is a universally recognized fundamental right of all peoples, nations, or communities.

The Bangsamoro people consider themselves as a nation distinct from the Filipinos. Their existence and identity as a distinct nation far antedated the so-called Filipino Nation. Prior to the Philippine revolution of 1896, the Christianized natives were referred to by the Spaniards as Indio’s.

While it is right the Philippine government has extended citizenship to the Bangsamoro people, the issue of allegiance to the Philippine State is an unsettled issue. Until now many Bangsamoros cannot accept being called Filipino for having a derogatory connotation to them as an unconquered people nor were they under the colonial rule of Spain. They prefer to be called Moros or Muslims or better still Bangsamoro.

On February 1, 1924, Moro leaders led by Sultan Mangigin of Maguindanao, petitioned the United States Congress either to remain as an unincorporated territory of the United States or be granted independence – their country to be known as Moro Nation. However, if their territories will be included as part of Philippine independence, along with Visayas and Luzon, they further petitioned the U.S. Congress to cause the holding of a plebiscite or referendum 50 years after the grant of Philippine Independence to decide by vote whether they should be part of the Philippine territory, or continue to be an unincorporated territory of United States, or given separate independence.

The 50 years grace period stated in that declaration of February 1, 1924, reckoned from the grant of Philippine independence on July 4, 1946, matured in 1996, the year that the GRP and MNLF entered into the Final Peace Agreement on September 2, 1996.

The Final Peace Agreement entered between the GRP and the MNLF on September 2, 1996 failed to fully address the legitimate grievances and aspirations of the Bangsamoro. If it did, there would be no need for the MILF to resume peace negotiations with the Philippine government.

The MILF listed nine talking points which were later clustered into six. During the resumption of the peace talk in June of 2001 held in Tripoli, Libya, the agenda was restated into three aspects, namely: Security, Rehabilitation and Development, and Ancestral Domain.

The latter was divided into four strands, namely: General Concepts, Territory, Natural Resources, and Governance. The remaining strand on Territory that will encompass the geographic jurisdiction of the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity is the most contentious part of the on-going

In fact the present Jihad or Holy war waged by the Bangsamoro is a continuation of the struggle which had been fought by their ancestors demanding for independence. The 487-year war which has been fought by the Bangsamoro is complete with historical facts.

“But what is surprising is despite of the long period of war being fought for, the Bangsamoro people are still engaged in a war for independence. The struggle which has been fought by the Bangsamoro in four hundred eighty seven years (487).

The final inclusion and annexation of the Moro land into the Philippine Republic happened in 1946. The U.S. colonial government and the succeeding Filipino neo-colonial power have totally failed to crush out Moro resistance..

Moro intellectuals appealed to the United States to break up the Moro Province, either as colony or as independent state. They collectively refused to join the Filipinos in their demand for independence.

Congressman Ombra Amilbangsa of Sulu Province had gone to the degree of sponsoring a bill in Philippine Congress in 1961 which sought to declare the independence of the Province of Sulu from the Philippine Republic. His bill did not value the attention of his colleagues in Congress.

The then Governor Datu Udtog Matalam of the empire Cotabato Province created the Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM) seeking the partition of Mindanao, Sulu, Basilan, Tawitawi and Palawan from the Philippine Republic and to set up an Islamic State in the ancestral homeland of the Bangsamoro in 1968. But such political aspiration failed.

Lastly in 1972, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Prof. Nur Misuari went public declaring armed struggle as its major instrument in the creation of a Bangsamoro Republic encompassing Mindanao, Sulu, Basilan, Tawitawi and Palawan. It sought to liberate Moro homeland from Philippine colonialism.