04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly MILF ended. The parties issued a joint statement of the consensus points of the Ancestral Domain aspect of GRP-MILF Tripoli Agreement on Peace of June 22, 2001. The Joint Statement provides that: "Among the consensus points reached were: · Joint determination of the scope of the Bangsamoro homeland based on the technical maps and data submitted by both sides; · Measures to address the legitimate grievances of the Bangsamoro people arising from the unjust dispossession and/or marginalization; · Bangsamoro people's right to utilize and develop their ancestral domain and ancestral lands; · Economic cooperation arrangements for the benefit of the entire Bangsamoro people." On July 27, 2008, a Joint Statement on the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) was signed by Chairperson Rodolfo C. Garcia on behalf of the GRP Peace Panel, and Mohagher Iqbal on behalf of the MILF Panel. In the Joint Statement, it was declared that the final draft of the MOA-AD has already been initialed. It was announced that "both sides reached a consensus to initial the final draft pending its official signing by the Chairmen of the two peace panels in early August 2008, in Putrajaya, Malaysia."[13] The Joint Statement triggered the filing of the petitions at bar. These Petitions, sought among others, to restrain the signing of the MOA-AD. On August 4, 2008, a day before the intended signing of the initialed MOA-AD, this Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order stopping the signing of the MOA-AD. Several petitionsin-intervention were also filed praying for the same relief. On August 8, 2008 and September 1, 2008, the respondents through the Solicitor General, submitted official copies of the initialed MOA-AD to the Court and furnished the petitioners and petitioners-in-intervention with copies of the same. All the petitions were heard by the Court in three separate days of oral arguments. In the course of the arguments, the Solicitor General informed the Court that the MOA-AD will not be signed "in its present form or any other form."[14] Thereafter, the government Peace Panel was dismantled by the President. II. Petitions should be Decided on the Merits The first threshold issue is whether this Court should exercise its power of judicial review and decide the petitions at bar on the merits. I respectfully submit that the Court should not avoid its constitutional duty to decide the petitions at bar on their merit in view of their transcendental importance. The subject of review in the petitions at bar is the conduct of the peace process with the MILF which culminated in the MOA-AD. The constitutionality of the conduct of the entire peace process and not just the MOA-AD should go under the scalpel of judicial scrutiny. The review should not be limited to the initialed MOA-AD for it is merely the product of a constitutionally flawed process of negotiations with the elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 67/203