DUTERTE VS MARCOS

The Department of National Defense will rigorously protect the Philippines’ sovereignty, the defense chief said Monday
in response to ex-leader Rodrigo Duterte’s comments from last week backing the idea of independence for his home
region of Mindanao.

Duterte made the comments amid an escalating feud with his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who, as the
former leader suggested, was attempting to amend the constitution to remove presidential term limits.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said that his department’s mandate was to “secure the sovereignty
of the state and integrity of the national territory” as enshrined in the constitution.

“We will strictly enforce this mandate whether externally or internally,” he said in a statement.
When BenarNews asked Teodoro’s office to clarify his remarks, it said his statement was made “in the context of the
calls for secession of Mindanao.”

The dispute threatens to break up a power alliance between the Duterte and Marcos families, the country’s two leading
political dynasties.

They joined forces in the 2022 election that brought Marcos, the namesake son of longtime Philippine dictator
Ferdinand E. Marcos, to office. Duterte’s daughter, Sara, serves as his vice president and education secretary.
Marcos’ nephew, who heads the House of Representatives, recently expressed interest in contesting the 2028 election,
potentially pitting him against Sara Duterte.

At a press conference last Tuesday, Duterte said he supported moves for a “separate and independent Mindanao,”
referring to the main island in the southern Philippines. It had been home to a long-running separatist insurgency before
the rebels agreed to a 2014 peace deal with Manila that gave them control of an autonomous Muslim region in
Mindanao.

When Duterte was president (2016-2022), he was a strong advocate of the peace process that brought about the
autonomous region.

In his comments on Jan. 30, Duterte said that a political ally had first pushed the “desirability of Mindanao seceding from
the Republic of the Philippines.” He said he initially supported a signature campaign to get this done.

The former president had claimed that the constitution could be changed by gathering enough signatures from “all
[over] Mindanao, verified under oath in the presence of so many people to decide [if] we want to separate.”

Duterte said that he had initially approved plans to push for charter change, during his presidential tenure, but only to
allow his government to devolve powers away from the center in Manila to Mindanao. But he abandoned the idea, local
media said, after experts advised him that the time wasn’t right for a federal system back then.

A devolution of powers for Mindanao or any other region towards a more federal system is a good move on paper,
analysts have said, because it would give regional bodies the power to handle their own affairs.

But there have been widespread fears that politicians in the Southeast Asian nation could use the proposed changes to
extend term limits. Under the charter, a president can only have a single six-year term.

Responding to Duterte’s threat, National Security Adviser Eduardo Año on Sunday warned that the government “will not
hesitate to use its authority and forces to quell and stop any and all attempts to dismember the republic.”

“In light of recent calls to separate Mindanao from the rest of the Philippines, we underscore the importance of national
unity, security and stability,” he said in a statement.

Año referred to the “hard-won gains” of the peace agreement with separatists in Mindanao, saying any talk of secession
could undo those positive developments.

“The comprehensive peace process, which brought an end to decades of armed conflict in Mindanao, must be vigorously
safeguarded and built upon,” he said.

The possibility of Marcos changing the constitution is one of a few reasons for the feud between the Marcoses and the
Dutertes.
Duterte, 78, firmly believes that a Marcos-backed campaign to amend the constitution, ostensibly to allow in more
foreign investment, is actually a move to do away with presidential term limits.

These limits were instituted after Marcos’ father was removed from power in a people-power revolt in 1986 after more
than three decades in power.

Duterte, in a speech late last month, warned Marcos against such a move, saying he could end up like his father.

That Marcos in December had allowed into the country investigators from the International Criminal Court to gather
evidence for its case against Duterte’s deadly drug war, did not please the former president’s supporters either.

They weren’t mollified by Marcos firmly saying that his administration “would not lift a finger” to help the ICC
investigation because it was a threat to the country’s sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner, who visited military camps across the southern Philippines at the
weekend, reminded soldiers to stay united and be wary of enemy efforts to infiltrate various sectors of society, following
Duterte’s call for independence.

“Let us focus on our duty,” Brawner said. “We have only one Philippines, only one country.”

EXPLAINER: Why Duterte’s sudden call for Mindanao independence won’t fly

MANILA, Philippines – A couple of days after former president Rodrigo Duterte accused his successor Ferdinand Marcos
Jr. of involvement in the illegal drug trade, the man from Davao City stepped up his rhetoric by calling for Mindanao’s
independence.

“What is at stake now is our future, so we’ll just separate,” Duterte was quoted as saying on January 30. The former
mayor even claimed he had asked his former House speaker – incumbent Davao del Norte 1st District Representative
Pantaleon Alvarez – to gather signatures in favor of the advocacy.

The government did not take the call sitting down, decrying the proposal that has – at the same time – baffled critics due
to its lack of specifics.

Rappler sums up the gigantic obstacles that advocates of Mindanao secession are facing to make that vision – if they are
really serious about it – a reality.

In the 2006 book Secession: International Law Perspectives, professor Antonello Tancredi wrote: “International law
neither prohibits nor authorizes secession, but simply acknowledges the result of de facto processes which may lead to
the birth of new states.”

There is no manual on successful secessions, and separatists can only learn from the experience of other countries.

Duterte-era chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo brought up the statehoods of Singapore and Timor-Leste,
but the conditions that paved the way for their independence are different from the realities in Mindanao.

Singapore, for instance, did not gain independence voluntarily. It was expelled by Malaysia in 1965, due to irreconcilable
differences in ideology and politics.

Timor-Leste, meanwhile, is a case that inspires Duterte, who said on February 7: “My proposal of a Mindanao secession
is a legal process that will be brought to the United Nations (UN), just like what happened to Timor-Leste.”

Yes, the UN organized a referendum in Timor-Leste in 1999, the watershed vote that resulted in its independence from
Indonesia. But the young nation’s journey of self-determination was bloody, and its experience does not necessarily
bear strong similarities to that of Mindanao.

While there were state-sanctioned killings that triggered the Moro insurgency in the southern Philippines, Timor-Leste
had to grapple with what numerous scholars believe is a genocide at the tail-end of the 20th century. The atrocities
during that time prompted the rise and consolidation of pro-independence organizations, which Mindanao does not
have at the moment.
The downfall of military dictator Suharto also ushered in an era of democratic reforms, and the succeeding president,
B.J. Habibie, allowed the people of Timor-Leste to pick either full independence from Indonesia or special autonomy.

The Philippine government has spoken strongly against the call for an independent Mindanao.
It seems implausible that the Marcos administration would one day just let political foes in Mindanao do what they
want, such as enabling a referendum on secession. After all, the government has already been adamant about quashing
Duterte’s out-of-left-field proposal that made national headlines.

Issuing their own statements to reject the former president’s call were the justice and interior departments, as well as
National Security Adviser Eduardo Año and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Carlito Galvez Jr. – both Marcos
appointees who were once part of the Duterte Cabinet.

“The national government will not hesitate to use its authority and forces to quell and stop any and all attempts to
dismember the Republic,” Año warned on February 4. “Any attempt to secede any part of the Philippines will be met by
the government with resolute force.”

President Marcos has also urged the proponents of a separate Mindanao to drop their advocacy.

“The new call for a separate Mindanao is doomed to fail, for it is anchored on a false premise, not to mention a sheer
constitutional travesty,” he said on February 8.

The 1987 Constitution does not entertain the concept of secession.

Panelo has rebuked Marcos, insisting that espousing the idea of secession is part of freedom of speech guaranteed by
the 1987 Constitution.

“Secession is anchored on the principle that the people have the right to self-determination. They have the right to
choose the kind of government they want, to choose the officials who will govern them and to determine their future,”
Panelo said on February 11.

Still, the present charter does not entertain secessionist movements.

The first two articles of the Constitution put a premium on the country’s territorial integrity, saying that the Armed
Forces of the Philippines must work “to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory.”

Marcos has already made clear how he interprets the Constitution in light of secession calls.

“Our Constitution calls for a united, undivided country. It calls for an eternal cohesion. For this reason, unlike other
Constitutions, there is nothing in ours that allows the breaking up of this union, such as an exit provision,” he said.

Duterte does not have the support of the Bangsamoro leadership nor key political figures from Mindanao.

There were calls in the past for Mindanao to separate from the rest of the Philippines, but “they never really got
mainstream,” according to former presidential adviser on the peace process Ging Deles.

“What became a real move towards independence or secession was the Bangsamoro,” she said in Rappler’s panel
discussion on Mindanao independence on February 9. “It was not a call for an independent Mindanao. It was a call of a
specific area that was united in teachers of culture, history, and tradition that were being neglected.”

Duterte, however, cannot convince even the leadership of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(BARMM) to join his cause.

“As chief minister of the Bangsamoro government, I stand firmly on adhering to the faithful implementation of the
provisions of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro towards the right to self-determination,” Bangsamoro
Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim said on February 2, referring to the landmark 2014 peace deal that resulted in Islamic
separatists letting go of their firearms.

Other leaders from Mindanao have opposed Duterte’s call, including Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, Senate
Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, and House Majority Leader Mannix Dalipe.

It appears that advocates of Mindanao secession have yet to fully organize themselves.
Weeks since Duterte’s statement, there are little indications that would suggest there is truly a “movement” or well-
oiled machine to concretize the idea. A signature campaign has also not begun.
When asked about the blueprint of their ambition, Alvarez acknowledged that they are still at the first step of what he
said is a three-stage process.

“First is awareness. The people in Mindanao need to know about this movement seeking to separate Mindanao from the
rest of the Philippines. The next stage would be acceptance. We have to answer the questions of what and why so the
public will understand. After that, we will wait for the right timing, the ‘when,'” he said during Rappler’s panel
discussion.

Alvarez insisted their call for Mindanao secession is not personal, but former presidential political adviser Ronald Llamas
disagreed.

Llamas suspects that the proposal ultimately stems from the long shadow cast by the possibility of the Marcos
administration allowing the International Criminal Court to arrest Duterte over his bloody drug war that resulted in
thousands dead.

“My belief is that the call for secession is basically personal. It’s the fear of the ICC,” he said. – Rappler.com