The failure to consummate a heinous crime, like murder or rape, does not make the attempt any less heinous. Moreover, there is no guarantee that a failed attempt won’t be repeated, which explains why charges for attempted rape or frustrated murder are never dismissed for being “moot and academic.”  

Likewise, the failed attempt to establish an entirely unconstitutional and illegal Bangsamoro Juridical Entity in Mindanao was tantamount to just such an attempted rape or frustrated murder on the 1987 Constitution itself — a heinous crime prevented only by a last-minute TRO issued by the Supreme Court, now made permanent.  Ruling on the Constitutional merits of the MOA-AD in Cotabato v. GRP and finding NONE,  the Supreme Court rejected Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera’s argument that the issue was now “moot and academic” just because the Palace had “dissolved” its peace panel and promised not to do it again.  There is only a small difference between murder and attempted murder, but more importantly, the peace process itself cannot be “moot and academic.”   Neither is the Constitution!

Among other things, the Court noted that the assailed act  is not only capable of, but likely to be repeated, since the MOA-AD was intended to fulfill the “Ancestral Domain Strand” of the 2001 Tripoli Agreement.  An agreement on “ancestral domain” will therefore have to be negotiated as part of that 2001 roadmap and is an integral part of the Mindanao peace process.  Indeed ancestral domain is an integral part of the 1987 Constitutional itself, and several subsequent landmark laws, like the Indigenous People’s Rights Act — both of which were brazenly violated by the 2008 GRP MILF MOA-AD. 

The Constitutional issues raised by the MOA-AD are NOT moot and academic because the peace process in Mindanao is NOT moot and academic, as events on the ground have amply demonstrated.  

Citizens, led by bloggers Manuel L. Quezon III (The Daily Dose), Ron of the The Marocharim Experiment and FEU Law Professor Edwin Lacierda have taken the unprecedented step of “intervening” in the current impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the House of Representatives.

They  advance a worthy argument.  Since the Supreme Court has ruled that there was a “grave abuse of discretion” in negotiating this MOA-AD, it remains to establish WHO was ultimately responsible.  Failed “consensus points” (as Devanadera calls the provisions of the MOA AD) have led to war and destruction in MIndanao and imperiled the  long term prospects for peace there.  Someone has definitely screwed the pooch.  If these were acts of the President herself, or accomplished by alter egos with her knowledge and bidding, she ought to be impeached and removed from office.  

44. The President of the Philippines, in going against the legal  advice of her own officials, and in acting in a manner calculated to alarm the  public, destabilize public order and security, fan the flames of ethnic and  religious mistrust, behaved so irresponsibly and willfully as to render her  unfit for office. For her policies, for which she is responsible and  accountable, have set back the peace process, inflamed radical sentiments,  fostered division and hostility among our people, caused misery and untold  suffering to innocent civilians, and needlessly imperiled the lives of  members of our armed forces and police, and caused great harm to the  economic stability of Mindanao and the entire Philippines.    

45. Indubitably, the act of respondent in authorizing the negotiation  of the constitutionally infirm MOA-AD, and subsequently approving the  same, establishes her blatant, willful, and flagrant disregard of our  Constitution.  She clearly violated the Constitution, which she swore to  preserve and defend, for which, she must be impeached and brought to trial.

It would be willful hallucination to think that the buck stops with Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, who only happened to be the hapless Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process on August 5, 2008 after retiring as CSAFP just a few months before.  Jesus Dureza, currently the Press Secretary, ought to be in that catbird seat instead, since he was PAPP ever since Ging Deles quit over Garci.  The defense advanced by SolGen Agnes Devanadera that the President was not characteristically, even micromaniacally, involved in every detail of these negotiations with the MILF rebels,  is absurd on its face given that as early as August, 2007 the President already mentioned the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity. (See a 2007 post, Ancestral Domain Regime or Bangsamorostan?)

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