Illogical
| FRONTLINE |
 |
| Ninez Cacho-Olivares |
Malacañang says the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is a “failed experiment” and a “failed sub-state” which is why there is the need for a synchronized election of the ARMM in 2013, when national polls are scheduled.
As the Palace argues, since ARMM is a failed experiment, the way to “reform” the claimed “sub-state” is to immediately kick out the elected officials and replace them with presidential appointees, reasoning that the ARMM elections have been known to always be marked with fraud.
First, the ARMM is not a sub-state, or even a state and can never be such. The Constitution does not allow the creation of a sub-state, as stated in the ruling junking the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The ARMM is an autonomous region that has to follow the Constitution and Philippine laws and is definitely not a sub-state.
Second, if the ARMM is a “failed experiment” because of fraudulent elections, with ARMM officials sitting in elective offices even when they are -- officially at least -- the choice of the people, they must now be thrown out of office before the 2013 polls with the presidential appointees seated in their stead, then it should follow that the President of the Republic can at whim, kick out elected officials, such as mayors, governors, congressmen and senators on claims that elections were marked with fraud, then replace them with whoever the President chooses to appoint to these elective offices, until the next elections..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110217com2.html
0 comments
Post a Comment