Various activities meant to push the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) forward are being held in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with the support of organizations and communities. Leaders from across the autonomous region, officials of the regional police and the military and incumbent local executives held Tuesday the first ever regional FAB consultation in the restive Sulu province, a stronghold of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). “I’m overwhelmed with the very positive turnout of this activity. Representatives of the local communities came to attend, including those representing our fisherfolks, the business, the religious and agriculture sectors,” Sulu governor Abdusakur M. Tan told reporters in a text message.
Even Nur Misuari, founder of the MNLF, attended the
consultation and sat near Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose province is
a bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Mangudadatu said he is grateful to Tan for having invited him
to grace the event, which was preceded by last week’s series of FAB
consultations in different parts of Maguindanao. The MILF’s main stronghold in
Southern Philippines, Camp Darapanan, is located in Magundanao’s Sultan Kudarat
town in the first district of the province.
“It’s nice to see activities of this nature spread in the ARMM
like a typhoon or a tsunami, bringing not devastation, but peace and harmony
among our people, Muslims and Christians alike,” Mangudadatu said. The dialogue was held at the Sulu provincial gymnasium near
downtown Jolo.
The news and information coordinator of ARMM Gov. Mujiv
Hataman, Sylvia Calderon, said Governors Jum Akbar of Basilan and Sadikul
Sahali of Tawi-Tawi; Jolo’s catholic vicar, Bishop Lito Lampon of the Oblates of
Mary Immaculate (OMI) congregation; and the grand mufti (cleric) in the
province, Shariff Julasiri Abirin, also joined in the dialogue.
Covenant
The event was capped with the signing of a covenant by
representatives of the five ARMM provinces --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur,
Basilan Sulu and Tawi-Tawi --- where signatories stated their support to the FAB
and President Aquino’s on-going Mindanao peace efforts. Participants also adopted resolutions calling on the MNLF to
extend support to the Mindanao peace process to ensure the sustainability of
Malacañang’s effort to foster lasting peace and sustainable in the autonomous
region. Another resolution called on Malacañang and the MILF to allow
the participation of representatives from the local governments in the provinces
of the autonomous region and its two component cities, Lamitan and Marawi, in
the transition commission that will oversee ARMM’s replacement with a new
political entity, based on the FAB. Tan said the FAB dialogue he organized was also meant to unite
LGU officials in Sulu to “a common position” to support the FAB. Calderon said religious leaders from the Zamboanga peninsula
and the Davao provinces also attended the consultation. Preceding the event in Sulu was a series of FAB consultations
in Lanao del Sur, Marawi City, and Maguindanao, participated extensively by
local officials and representatives from local sectors and MILF officials.
Snowball effect
Activities to educate the public and raise their awareness
about FAB have snowballed in many areas in Mindanao. The oldest radio outfits in Mindanao that are owned by the
OMI’s Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp. have been airing daily appeals for support
to the FAB and the on-going GPH-MILF peace talks. Students of Central Mindanao’s biggest Catholic school, the
Notre Dame University (NDU) here, which is also owned by the OMI, have started
converting into murals the walls encircling their 24-hectare campus, showing
images depicting solidarity of Muslims and Christians in addressing domestic
security concerns. The NDU pioneered “peace education” in the early 1980s, which
is focused on the propagation of Muslim-Christian unity and the values of
interfaith dialogues in promoting political stability and socio-economic growth
in Southern Philippines. Even members of various press clubs in Central Mindanao, many
of them trained on “peace journalism” by different peace advocacy outfits in the
country and abroad, signed last week a manifesto committing help in
disseminating the importance of the October 15 framework deal.
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