MILF: MILF tells GPH to comply during CAB’s commemoration

Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Website (Mar 29): MILF tells GPH to comply during CAB’s commemoration



MILF Chairman Alhaj Murad Ebrahim and the Front’s Peace Panel Chairman Mohagher Iqbal both reiterated their call to the Philippine government to honor its commitments during yesterday’s (March 28) commemoration of the two-year old Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in Cotabato City.

In a speech read for him by the MILF Central Committee Secretary Muhammad Ameen, Murad said that they will “continue to ask government to comply with its unilateral obligation to enact a law that would give life and realization to the letter and spirit of the CAB.”

Similarly, Iqbal told the crowd who gathered at the Notre Dame University gym that the MILF is “more determined to assert the full, unconditional implementation of the CAB, especially the enactment of the BBL.”

Iqbal also chairs the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) which drafted the BBL or the Bangsamoro Basic Law that Congress failed to enact.

While the 16th Congress would still resume sessions on May 23 to June 10, yet all are resigned to the fact the BBL would no longer be passed under the administration of Pres. Benigno Aquino III whose term ends on noontime of June 30.

Murad stressed that whoever becomes President “must honor the CAB and place it among the top of his or her agenda” because the “costs of failure are high”.

The resumption of hostilities would jeopardize the gains of the peace process and would also “undermine the longer-term political and economic reforms for the country,” Murad said.

He also mentioned that it would be the “”height of humiliation” for the government to sidetrack the process because “numerous sets of eyes” are observing the implementation of the CAB.

Commemoration, not celebration

Prior to the afternoon’s formal program, Iqbal explained that the activity is not a celebration but just a commemoration since the non-passage of the BBL does not give the Front any good reason to be celebratory in mood.

“This commemoration of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro is not spared from mockery and opposition. There are those who see no need, meaning and wisdom over this commemorative event. For them, the non-passage of BBL totally diminishes the value of the CAB,” he said.

Iqbal made an appeal to “Bangsamoro, the migrant communities, the indigenous peoples and the Filipino nation in general NOT to take for granted the value of the CAB” saying “the CAB is very much alive.”

Even though we suffer the setback in the BBL, it is not the end of the road. It was the BLBAR that died, not the BBL that is based on the CAB.”

BLBAR, or Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, was the title of the substitute bills made by the House of Representatives and Senate.

Both versions were opposed by the BTC and MILF because of its numerous substantial differences from the original and mutually-accepted version of the BBL.

The CAB was signed on March 27, 2014 but the commemoration was made on the 28th of this March since the 27th fell on Easter Sunday.

The occasion was also marked by the giving of plaques of appreciation to officials of several mechanisms created as the peace process progressed, such as the ceasefire mechanisms (IMT, CCCH, AHJAG), normalization mechanisms (JNC, JPSC, JPST, IDB, IDB-VMATs, TFDCCs, JTFCTs), other mechanisms under the CAB (ICG, TPMT , TJRC and ICP) and funding agencies (FASTRAC and MTF).

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