OPAPP, MILF to join Maguindanao peace summit

From the Philippine Star (May 20): OPAPP, MILF to join Maguindanao peace summit

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process will send delegates to the May 25 grand Maguindanao peace summit in Buluan town where participants are to discuss the political significance of the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

The pro-BBL dialogue, organized by the office of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, the police, and the local chapter of the Mayors League of the Philippines, is the provincial government’s 33rd since the bill was submitted to Congress last year.

The MILF’s Muhaquer Iqbal, chair of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, told The Star Wednesday they will send representatives to the event, among them officials of their Coordinating Committee on Cessation of Hostilities.

Iqbal said the event is a good venue for sectoral leaders from across Maguindanao, which covers 36 towns, to speak about their perceptions on the draft BBL, premised on two government-MILF accords, the October 15,2013 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and the March 27, 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.

Mangudadatu, Maguindanao Vice Gov. Lester Sinsuat, and all of Maguindanao’s 36 incumbent mayors have overtly been campaigning for the approval of the draft BBL since its inception, even before President Benigno Aquino III had certified it as an urgent bill.

Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said military officials involved in various peace-building activities in Maguindanao are to attend the May 25 peace summit.

Mangudadatu said Pangilinan and the regional director of the ARMM police, Chief Supt. Ronald Estilles, will provide security for the venue of the summit.

Pangilinan said their summit security missions are coordinated with the joint government-MILF ceasefire committee.

 Mangudadatu on Tuesday said the event is meant to gather sectoral leaders from across the province to confer on the benefits of enacting the draft BBL into a national edict.

“This will be a convergence, a peace assembly of Maguindanao’s Moro, Christian and lumad people,” said Mangudadatu, chairperson of the inter-agency provincial peace and order council.

The provincial administrator of Maguindanao, Engineer Wahab Tunga, and a senior member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, Bobby Katambak, had separately confirmed that the peace summit will involve representatives from the MILF and the municipal peace and order councils in all of Maguindanao's 36 towns.

Katambak said the most pressing concern for the provincial government now is how to intensify its peace programs under an MILF-led Bangsamoro political entity.

Marlon Dedumo, a senior staff of OPAPP’s media office in Cotabato City, said they will also attend the event, along with representatives from the government’s ceasefire committee, which is led by Army Brig. Gen. Carlito Gavez, Jr.

http://www.philstar.com/nation/2015/05/20/1456858/opapp-milf-join-maguindanao-peace-summit