MILF says initial agreements with national gov't transparent, open to public scrutiny

From the Philippine News Agency (Dec 12): MILF says initial agreements with national gov't transparent, open to public scrutiny

A successful peace agreement should be open to public scrutiny, including those who are pessimistic about it, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front said Thursday.

With that premise, the MILF which is nearing completion of the Mindanao peace process with the national government, said it is confident the power sharing agreement forged last Sunday can stand and will survive constructive criticism from honest minds and from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

The MNLF had earlier warned that the power sharing agreement might trigger fresh armed hostilities in southern Philippines.

In an editorial posted on its website the day after one of the most contentious issues was signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the MILF said: “Modesty aside, the annex on power-sharing is a class of its own. It can be open for scrutiny and we are optimistic that honest minds will have difficulty criticizing it."

The MILF admitted that the annexes of the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement was "not a perfect agreement because there had never been a perfect agreement in all times.

However, it said there are always "oppositors" who would be the fault-finders.

"They (fault-finders) are the breed that never sees good things in life, because they see the world as ugly and unfit for living," it said.

“This is a world of imperfection, and as such, one has to struggle in all spheres of life so as not to achieve Utopian perfection in this life but to install justice to every collective human endeavor and relationship. The Annex on Power-Sharing is one such product of struggle,” the MILF statement said.

The biggest Moro rebel movement in southern Philippines seeking recognition of its right to self determination, said the signing of the annex was made possible through the joint efforts and dedication of of GPH-MILF peace panels, the third party facilitator, the international community and civil society organizations.

With the power-sharing already agreed upon, the GPH and MILF panel of negotiators are left with the annex on normalization or decommissioning of MILF forces.

"We expect to have the annex on normalization signed by early 2014," Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chair for political affairs, said.

Jaafar stressed that the peace process between them and the MILF had been transparent from the very beginning "to avoid the mistakes in previous peace deal in southern Philippines."

In the power-sharing deal, a Bangsamoro ministerial officials will be named and among themselves will choose a chief minister who will lead the Bangsamoro government.

Under the Bangsamoro Framwork Agreement, a 50-member legislative assembly will be formed that will constitute the Bangsamoro ministerial government.

Muslimin Sema, chair of the bigger and more politically active faction of the MNLF, has warned the power sharing agreement was a violation to the Constitution which states that the government should be unitary and not parliamentary or ministerial.

Chief government peace negotiator Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer denied the initial agreement with the MILF was in anyway a violation of the Philippine Constitution.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=596149