Why did it take
Aquino so long?

Perhaps, most of us had long forgotten that it was weeks ago that Senator Antonio Trillanes had undercut Foreign Secretary Alberto Del Rosario as a sort of bungling diplomat.

Yesterday, however, President Noynoy Aquino finally assured the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines that Del Rosario is not one who can easily be dispensed with or replaced. In short, he paid tribute to him as one of the hardest working members of the Aquino Cabinet.

Too late, after all, sometime after the Trillanes blast, del Rosario had been rumored as packing his bags. But nary was there a defense raised in his favor by the President.

It took him so long to be able to give due credit to Del Rosario as one of the hardest working members of the Cabinet.

That was not sweet comfort for Del Rosario. But, at least, it may have mollified to a certain extent the piqued DFA top official who must have felt all these weeks that the President had left him dangling in mid-air while rumors swirled around about his fate.

It's funny, the President often defends his erstwhile companions in target shooting and other activities but seems reluctant to take up the cudgels for efficiently hardworking Cabinet members.

Some of us must admit that President Aquino is as well-versed in English and flawless in “Filipino” or Tagalog.

His almost flawless performance at the FOCAP Meet the Press affair the other day showed that he has mastery of the language as he has of his own Tagalog.

One must admit that the President has managed to make people understand his various positions on vital issues in English as he did with Tagalog.

Unfortunately, only a handful of Pinoys really understand Tagalog, despite his penchant for the language.

Most of us Visayas and Mindanao residents hardly understand his Tagalog, the reason why he must be able to communicate with his constituents in a more understandable lingo than his penchant for Tagalog.

***

Well, whether he appears personally or not, Julius Sayson must now be considered a nuisance candidate by the Commission on Elections for challenging uncle Jude Thaddeus Sayson.

Hardly anybody in Bacolod thought that Julius really had it in him to pose a credible challenge to Sayson from the very start.

But who knows? Given a chance that he is provided the opportunity to raise such funds for a campaign, Julius might still have confounded a lot of skeptics.

But even members of his own family signed affidavits attesting to the fact that he is in no position to mount a credible challenge to uncle Jude.

Well, such is life, Julius! You never had a chance to challenge Jude.

***

Bangsamoro shall be established to replace the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. Now that has been billed as a precursor of peace in our troubled southern backdoor.

But despite the open-minded preliminary peace agreement, it fails to clarify the major issues to be addressed.

So, for the first time, it lumps up Cotabato and Isabela cities as part of the Bangsamoro juridical entry.

These are two cities which rejected membership in the ARMM. Does this mean that, now, they will be included in the new territory?

But the most fraught with troubles is the phrase that law enforcement functions shall be transferred from the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the police force for the Bangsamoro.

And I thought all the time that national defense was the prerogative of the national government.

It also stipulates that the Bangsamoro shall be governed by a Basic Law. But it does not clarify whether that basic law should comply with the Philippine Constitution.

The Tripoli Agreement between the MNLF and the Philippine Government seems to have embodied safeguards that prevent misunderstandings between the government and the ARMM.

In short, the lines were drawn clearly – the limits of the MNLF are the Constitution of the Philippines, the national government retains for itself the role of the national defense, etc. It does not cede its enforcement powers to the local police force. Instead, some of the MNLF forces were to be integrated into the national police. And they were not to enforce local laws that do not conform to the Constitution.

Nur Misuari may have been dismissed as talking through his hat when he warned that the Bangsamoro document could be the possible source of more problems ahead.

It remains to be seen. The promises that the transnational body will handle the gritty of contentious issues is fraught with perils.

We foresee troubling days ahead.*

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