Gov't knows MILF execs' use of aliases, allowed for security purposes – Palace

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 10): Gov't knows MILF execs' use of aliases, allowed for security purposes – Palace

A Palace official on Friday said the government is not worried if members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are using aliases while negotiating for the peace process.

Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte, in a briefing, said that “the real names of the MILF negotiators are of course known to the Philippine government.

”In fact, they possess Philippine passports as issued by the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs),” she said.

Valte explained that “when the peace process started in 1997, the MILF negotiators like previous rebel group negotiators — notably from the NDF (National Democratic Front), the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front), the CPLA (Cordillera People’s Liberation Army)— they were allowed the courtesy to continue using their aliases that they used as underground.”

This, she pointed out, is “a matter of personal security.”

”So, at least for us, the BBL (Bangsamoro Basic Law) should be discussed on the basis of the merits of the law itself, or of the draft bill itself, and not other attendant issues that may be related but perhaps are not really at the core of the main points or the core points of the BBL draft itself,” she said.

Valte said they do not consider any deception on the part of the MILF officials when the latter used pseudo names.

”There’s no deception on their part because they made their real names known to government,” she said.

The Palace official said statements supporting or against the BBL and the peace process in general is but natural since “you cannot stop people from voicing out their fears.”

”What we are here to do is to open the discussion on the merits of the BBL and to continue to explain the position of government as to why we think that this is a real solution to the conflict that is happening in Mindanao,” she said.

Relatively, Valte said the recently convened National Peace Council, which held their initial meeting last April 6, does not need any Executive Order (EO) for it to be legal.

She explained that it was formed by private individuals and groups following the encouragement of President Benigno Aquino III for private sector participation but stressed that it is not being funded by the government.

”We have no hand in the selection, we have no hand in anything else. These community leaders and private individuals have agreed to form this Council, again, which will not supplant Congress in any way to be able to contribute to the national discussion on BBL,” she said.

Valte said all questions regarding the group has to be addressed to its officials because the government has nothing to do with the Council.

”My understanding is that at the end of their work, they will submit a document. I don’t know if it’s a report, their recommendations, but they’re really supposed to sit down and to discuss the merits and how the bill can be improved, and I think that is their end-goal: to make recommendations,” she said.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=751996