BTC-BBL way to lasting peace in Mindanao: Cotabato archbishop

Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Cardinal Quevedo (Photo by NDBC News)

COTABATO CITY --- Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, Mindanao’s first-ever Roman Catholic cardinal, has expressed support to the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) version of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), describing it as “the way to a just and lasting peace” in Mindanao.

In a statement released last May 21 to the media outlets for the Senate Consultative Committee, Quevedo said his position on the BBL is the result of his long years of study of Muslim history in the country.

“Two hundred years before Christianity was brought by Spain to the islands we now call the Philippines, Islam entered the Visayas and the islands of Mindanao and Sulu through Arab traders and teachers,” Quevedo said in his statement.

Eventually, the cardinal said many of the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) converted from their traditional animist religious traditions and became Muslims, with the rule of Islam by the way of datus and sultans swaying over the southern islands, parts of the Visayas and up north in what is today known as Manila.

“For five centuries they held on to five fundamental political realities, namely identity, self-determination, territory, sovereignty, and development,” Quevedo said as he cited the Muslims’ resistance to Spanish invaders.

In fact, Quevedo pointed out that when the Americans took over from the Spaniards, they demonstrated respect to the Muslims for their distinct Bangsamoro identity by creating the Moro province.

“It is well known that the Bangsamoro wanted to be governed by Americans rather than by the new Independent Christian Filipinos. It is also well known that through successive political democratization and through the wave Christian migrants from Luzon and the Visayas up to the late 1960s, Mindanao ceased to be Muslim in the short space of 50 years,” the cardinal said.

For this, he said the Bangsamoro lost their sovereignty, self-determination, and the greater portion of the territory.

With the BBL, the cardinal said Mindanao is on the cusp of peace after two decades of "persistent, patient, and tortuous negotiations" between the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Quevedo said that after closely studying the BTC-BBL, he firmly believes that the BTC-BBL "fully upholds Philippine territorial integrity and national sovereignty; that the BTC-BBL exercise self-determination and genuine sovereignty under the Philippine national government; that the BTC-BBL respects the identity and fundamental human rights of the minorities in the Bangsamoro, especially of Christians and IPs; and that the BTC-BBL fundamentally reflects the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) and Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB)."

Furthermore, he warned that "any watering down or revisions that would make the BTC-BBL non-CAB/FAB compliant would add yet another grave injustice against the Bangsamoro, adding that the BTC-BBL "must first be approved before serious debates on the concept of federalism." (Noel Punzalan, PNA - Cotabato)