MILF fighters cheer after the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (file)
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Tuesday urged President Benigno Aquino III to “personally attend” to a snag in the Mindanao peace process, saying the government’s review of the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law was too obsessed with legalities.
An editorial on the MILF website, Luwaran, said Aquino’s name was “at stake” as it warned that, “like the MILF, not all in government prefer to solve this conflict in Mindanao through peaceful means and fairly.”
“There are those whose agenda run counter to the policies of the MILF and government and whenever opportunity arises they will do their thing on their own fashion,” the editorial said. “The worst enemy is not from without but from within. That is why spies and traitors are punished painfully during wars or even in peacetime.”
Although the editorial did not name who the MILF thought was responsible for the setback, it said: “Part of the review team were the very office tasked by the government to oversee the conduct of peace negotiations not just with the MILF but with all ‘rebel’ groups in the Philippines and a former lady commissioner of the BTC who did not sign the proposed BBL.”
This is a clear reference to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, headed by Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles.
The BBL is supposed to be the basis for the creation of a new autonomous entity, the Bangsamoro, to replace the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, as agreed by the government and MILF in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro.
After it was crafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, chaired by MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, the draft BBL was submitted to Malacanang which, in turn, was supposed to pass it to Congress before it adjourned last month.
The setback was first disclosed by MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal -- who is also chairman of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission that drew up the draft BBL -- in a speech at a peace forum in Istanbul, Turkey on June 26-27, in which he recounted that, just before a meeting between Aquino and MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim in Hiroshima, Japan on June 23, he was handed “a copy of the proposed BBL bearing the remarks and comments from the OP, which heavily diluted the original proposal coming from the BTC.”
The remarks, which Iqbal quoted an MILF lawyer as saying “would be worse than the Republic Act No. 9054 that created the so-called Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” became the subject of the meeting between Aquino and Murad.
Reacting to Iqbal’s disclosure, government chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer issued a statement assuring that, “we are not throwing in the towel because we do need the towel for this laborious task that is 99 percent perspiration.”
“We appeal to the understanding of all sectors who have accompanied this process and who like us desire to institutionalize a Bangsamoro that is grounded on a solid foundation and enjoying very strong people's support,” she said.
However, the Luwaran editorial described the OP’s comments as “like a cow bearing a horse, which defies the law of science or nature that the offspring will always carry the genes of the parents.”
“We do not know what made the review team look at the Moro Question as purely legal matter,” the editorial said, as it reiterated the MILF’s position that “the current Constitution would require an amendment to finally put to rest the conflict in Mindanao,” in contrast to government’s stand that the Charter “has the flexibilities to accommodate and implement legally” the CAB.
While the editorial also acknowledged calls for the draft BBL to be made public, it stressed that the MILF “is not taking an active endorsement” of these calls.
Nevertheless, it said the current snag had led people to “speculate on the nature” of the OP’s comments on the draft BBL and had, thus, made it “better to discuss, at least the generalities of the comments, rather than close the door of their understanding completely.”
“The people have the right to know,” it said.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/90771/milf-urges-aquino-to-personally-address-snag-in-peace-process-blames-opapp
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