CAMP DARAPANAN, Maguindanao—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has asked President Rodrigo Duterte to “return to the Maranao people” the lands they lost over decades to the government through past Presidential Proclamations, a top MILF leader said Friday.
MILF First Vice Chairman Ghazzali Jaafar said during a meeting last week between Duterte and MILF leaders in Davao City that the MILF vigorously asked the Chief Executive to return to the Maranao people the lands that the government has taken from them from the time of the American colonial government.
Jaafar on Friday read to visiting foreign journalists a historical summary of the Moro land dispossession, starting with the colonial succession of the Americans from the Spaniards with the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
The vice-chairman said President Duterte had verbally approved the MILF’s intercession for the Maranao people to repossess lands they have lost literally to colonization.
Jaafar added that the MILF intercession formed part of the process of “correcting the historical injustices on the Moro people,” from the era of colonization to the extension of a largely Manila-centered government that started on July 4, 1946.
The Manila Standard has run this month a three-part story on “How the Maranaos lost Marawi,” from legislation and Presidential Proclamations by succession of Philippine Chief Executives, starting in 1934 with the Quirino-Recto Colonization Act (Commonwealth Act 4197 of 1934).
According to records of the old Bureau of Lands, which were inherited by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Marawi City has a total area of 8,396 hectares.
“Practically, nothing is left to the Maranaos,” ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman had told the Manila Standard.
ARMM Environment Secretary Hadji Kahal Q. Kedtag said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in ARMM (DENR-ARMM) has preserved original copies of the documents from a sequence of older sources.
The government has classified 6,667.1625 hectares as Military Reservation under Presidential Proclamation (PP) 453, issued by President Elpidio Quirino on December 23, 1953. In 1961, President Carlos Garcia issued PP 806, setting aside 999.3560 hectares for the Mindanao State University school site, after the enactment that year of Republic Act 1387, the MSU charter authored by Senator Ahmad Domocao Alonto.
On Dec. 26, 1956, President Ramon Magsaysay signed PP 375 to apportion 171.4514 hectares of Marawi City area for the Lanao Provincial Capitol. On May 22, 1959, Lanao was divided into Lanao Norte, and Lanao Sur which has retained to date the Marawi-based provincial capitol.
On Dec. 3, 1974, President Ferdinand Marcos signed PP 1354 putting 803.1440 hectares under the control of the state-run National Power Corp. for the development of hydroelectric power facilities.
Only President Fidel Ramos signed mid-year to edict PP 992 on June 26, 1992, setting aside 3.0697 hectares for the development of Lanao Park and Library. In all, the total land area of the apportioned parts of Marawi is 8,644.1836 —or 248.1836 hectares short of the original land size of the city.
The city was created in 1940 by Commonwealth Act 592 with its original name Dansalan, meaning “harbor.”
Duterte had initially wanted Moro forces to fight side-by-side with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the Marawi crisis. But he had soon backtracked from that plan, saying a friendly fire could erode the peace process.
Jaafar also said the MILF role in the Marawi clashes did not toe that line of the President. He said the MILF had instead pushed for a “Peace Corridor” by which to delineate boundaries between positions of adverse forces to give way to humanitarian operations, initially focused on rescue and emergency relief on residents trapped within the war zone area of Marawi City.
He said Presidential Assistant on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza had promptly approved the Peace Corridor plan under which the MILF called on both parties of the conflict to acquiesce to an urgent, yet unofficially declared ceasefire, to allow evacuation of civilians trapped inside buildings, unable to flee at the earliest opportune time. Nash B. Maulana
