The imperfections of IPRA should be acknowledged, just like those of many of our laws on the books. I can see that much needs to be done. To begin with, it’s obvious a sizeable percent of those 110 IPs has yet to realize their ancestral domain under the present law despite being in force for a decade already. But it’s a good start. Let’s improve on it and not kill it.

Ding,

There’s no dismemberment clause in the MoA-AD. If there is, I’ll join with the Dean, Ding and Drilon crusade.

But what if even as “a sub-state within a state” Bangsamoro becomes a Dubai or a Singapore for that matter (given that some Big Guns seem behind it), won’t that save our OWFs a trip?

The MoA-AD in its present form would perhaps placate the MILF but will in turn spell the Republic’s dismemberment. Add to that Cha-cha will really open the Constitution up to rape, tis non-lawyer submits.

It’s very convenient now to talk about the “Bangsamoro people” — a concept not found at all in the IPRA but advanced and aggrandized by the MOA to include about 60 of the IPs (including lumands and other tribes that were for centuries enslaved and oppressed by the sultanates). But pretty soon this kind of talk will lead to a declaration of independence by an armed rebel group wearing uniforms stitched in Kuala Lumpur.

This morning btw, Frank Drilon explained how the MOA’s provisions give the BJE a veto power on anything the “central govt” wants and does wrt territory and why Malaysia supports it to junk the Philippine claim to Sabah.

Now as you point out, the IPRA is hanging by the skin of its teeth on that 7-7 tie, and that was before a “justiciable case” arose in the context of the MOA. (The discussion in Cruz vs. DENR/NCIP was about a curiously weird and sophomoric history.

If the Supreme Court does not strike it down, there will be violent conflict in Mindanao for a long to time to come because Christians, lumads and Muslims are inextricably linked in Mindanao, and carving out Bangsamorostan will create a Kosovo style situation down there.

The IPRA is a boil on our brain waitng to be lanced.