From the Manila Times (May 30, 2019): MILF rebels to get financial help
While kin of police commandos brutally killed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in Mamasapano, Maguindanao continue to demand justice, the Duterte government is proposing to provide P100,000 in cash to each of the 12,000 MILF guerrillas as a gesture of goodwill and as part of the peace process.
According to reports, Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez said the proposed financial aid would cover MILF fighters who surrendered their weapons as part of the decommissioning process, although there is no provision in the peace deal that the government will pay for guns collected from the rebel group.
The funds, the reports claimed, would come from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity, which Galvez heads. About P1.2 billion is needed to pay off the MILF members, who will also be provided with livelihood skills training to help them integrate into mainstream society.
Families of those who died demanded that rebel leader Murad Ebrahim, now Chief Minister of the Muslim autonomous region, surrender those behind the gruesome murders.
The commandos, members of the Special Action Force (SAF), were sent on a clandestine mission deep inside MILF territory in Barangay Tukanalipao on Jan. 25, 2015 to capture Malaysian bomber Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan.
Marwan surived the attack, but was eventually killed. Commandos cut off his finger for DNA analysis.
The elite group was on its way to rejoin more than 300 SAF commandos when it was attacked by MILF forces aided by BIFF militants, sparking daylong clashes. At least 18 MILF and five BIFF militants were killed in the fierce fighting that the Aquino government originally claimed was a misencounter.
Barely a month after the fighting, the MILF surrendered at least 16 automatic weapons it took from slain police commandos. The surrender of the weapons further bolstered reports of lawmakers and human rights groups that MILF rebels had finished off wounded commandos and collected their guns.
The weapons were handed over to the police, but SAF sources claimed the weapons had been tampered and that many of the parts were either taken out or replaced with defective mechanisms.
Because of the killings, lawmakers shelved the Bangasamoro Basic Law (BBL) until investigations into the deadly clashes between SAF and the MILF were completed.
The BBL was eventually passed, but families of the slain commandos were still crying out for justice.
The MILF said it would not surrender those involved in the killings.
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