The clock is ticking away on the peace process, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) told government on Thursday, April 11, as the formal talks in Kuala Lumpur ended without any agreement.
This was the statement of Mohagher Iqbal, chief MILF peace negotiator and head of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), during the closing program of the GPH-MILF Exploratory Talks in Kuala Lumpur on April 9-11.
He cautioned the government against prolonging the talks further.
Earlier, Prof. Miriam Ferrer-Coronel, government peace chief negotiator, told media reporters that the comprehensive peace agreement will be signed in March this year, which she changed to April after the parties failed to beat the timeline.
The two parties set the next round of talks after the May 13 Philippine elections.
Meanwhile, Datu Antonio Kinoc, alternate member of the MILF peace panel, told Luwaran that he could not understand why government always changes position, which he explained as the real cause of the delays.
“I do not know where the problem lies - in the negotiating team or in their principal,” he confessed.
Maulana Alonto, senior MILF Panel member and also a member of the BTC admitted that their negotiating team was taken aback by the failure of the GPH Panel to sign at least the Annex on Wealth-Sharing, the text of which was already agreed on and initialled by the two Parties during the 36th GPH-MILF Exploratory Talks last February.
“Before we flew to Kuala Lumpur for the 37th Exploratory Talks, expectations were
high that the Panels would be able to put closure to further discussions on the Annex on Wealth-Sharing since the text was already initialled by both sides last February 25th. Of course, the Panels had the right to bring it back to their respective principals for a cursory review, but we were thinking this was merely routine because the Panels had already concurred on the language of the initialled text and that consultations were made with their principals before the initialling took place. We were not prepared, however, for the sudden announcement by the GPH panel that they needed more time to revisit and review the Wealth-Sharing Annex despite the fact that more than a month is an ample time to make such a review. I therefore share the sentiment of my team mates in the MILF Panel that something is wrong. A very serious problem now on the question of credibility has come to the fore. We are racing against time but the way things are turning out, time might outrun us,” Maulana Alonto lamented.
For his part, Abdulla Camlian, another MILF peace panel member and likewise a TC member, gave an abbreviated comment by saying that these uncertainties would boil down to what President Benigno Aquino III has in mind.
“I think there is much traffic between him and his negotiators and we may be looking at communications problem between them as the culprit,” he surmised.
“Let us wait for certainly the real score will be known sooner or later,” he added.
http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/welcome/item/308-milf-tells-gov’t-time-is-ticking-away
He cautioned the government against prolonging the talks further.
Earlier, Prof. Miriam Ferrer-Coronel, government peace chief negotiator, told media reporters that the comprehensive peace agreement will be signed in March this year, which she changed to April after the parties failed to beat the timeline.
The two parties set the next round of talks after the May 13 Philippine elections.
Meanwhile, Datu Antonio Kinoc, alternate member of the MILF peace panel, told Luwaran that he could not understand why government always changes position, which he explained as the real cause of the delays.
“I do not know where the problem lies - in the negotiating team or in their principal,” he confessed.
Maulana Alonto, senior MILF Panel member and also a member of the BTC admitted that their negotiating team was taken aback by the failure of the GPH Panel to sign at least the Annex on Wealth-Sharing, the text of which was already agreed on and initialled by the two Parties during the 36th GPH-MILF Exploratory Talks last February.
“Before we flew to Kuala Lumpur for the 37th Exploratory Talks, expectations were
high that the Panels would be able to put closure to further discussions on the Annex on Wealth-Sharing since the text was already initialled by both sides last February 25th. Of course, the Panels had the right to bring it back to their respective principals for a cursory review, but we were thinking this was merely routine because the Panels had already concurred on the language of the initialled text and that consultations were made with their principals before the initialling took place. We were not prepared, however, for the sudden announcement by the GPH panel that they needed more time to revisit and review the Wealth-Sharing Annex despite the fact that more than a month is an ample time to make such a review. I therefore share the sentiment of my team mates in the MILF Panel that something is wrong. A very serious problem now on the question of credibility has come to the fore. We are racing against time but the way things are turning out, time might outrun us,” Maulana Alonto lamented.
For his part, Abdulla Camlian, another MILF peace panel member and likewise a TC member, gave an abbreviated comment by saying that these uncertainties would boil down to what President Benigno Aquino III has in mind.
“I think there is much traffic between him and his negotiators and we may be looking at communications problem between them as the culprit,” he surmised.
“Let us wait for certainly the real score will be known sooner or later,” he added.
http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/welcome/item/308-milf-tells-gov’t-time-is-ticking-away
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