MANILA: The Supreme Court struck down yesterday a homeland deal reached by a government panel and Muslim rebels earlier this year, calling it illegal, despotic and whimsical.

The government has already said it has given up on the deal after the Supreme Court ordered it halted in August pending a final decision.

Voting 8-7, the court ruled that the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) violated provisions in the Constitution.

The 90-page high court decision, authored by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, reminded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that, while she has the mandate to explore all avenues to attain peace in Mindanao, she has no authority to commit the government to an agreement that may require changes to the Constitution but has to consult Congress or the people.

The government was hoping the court would rule the petition as moot because Manila had scrapped the proposed deal and even dissolved its peace panel dealing with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels.

“How can there be a violation when an act has not been consummated?” Agnes Devanadera, the government’s legal counsel, told reporters. “That agreement was not signed.”

Hermogenes Esperon, a retired general and the president’s peace adviser, said the government was not giving up on forging a peace deal with the rebels despite the court ruling.

“There are lots of options,” he told reporters.

The decision comes two months after the court decided to hear the legal challenges raised by some Catholic politicians, stopping Manila from signing the agreement.

Rogue MILF members went on the rampage after the deal was halted and nearly 300 people have been killed since then as hostilities resumed in the unruly south.

“The court has just thrown to the wind four years of our hard negotiations,” Mohaqher Iqbal, the MILF chief peace negotiator, said.

Iqbal said the court decision closed the door on any peace talks to end nearly 40 years of conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people, displaced 2 million and kept one of the most resource-rich regions of the country dirt poor.

— With input from agencies