PRESIDENT Aquino, unfazed by renewed terror attacks in Mindanao, is set to fly to Davao City on Wednesday morning to attend a summit of the soon to be abolished Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)—formed after a 1996 peace pact with the mainstream Moro National LIberation Front (MNLF)—to give way to a new Bangsamoro entity provided in a separate peace deal being worked out by the government with the breakaway Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Malacañang maintained on Monday that the bombing of a transmission tower of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) in Maguindanao over the weekend “should not derail” the Aquino administration’s efforts to attain peace in the South.
A Palace statement read by Palace Spokesman Edwin Lacierda on the eve of the ARMM summit acknowledged that “there will always be people who will try to put down the government, especially now that the Bangsamoro peace agreement will be signed.”
Lacierda did not name the group suspected to have carried out the attack on the NGCP tower even as he affirmed that the government is “prepared to make sure we can push through with our goal to achieve just and lasting peace in MIndanao.”
At a Palace news briefing, Lacierda told reporters the President decided to go to Mindanao and forge ahead with the peace agreement with the MILF, even after the tower attack.
“The President has gone [to the MILF headquarters in Camp Darapanan],” he recalled, adding that Aquino “is not averse going to places where he has to be.”
In the same briefing, Lacierda sidestepped questions on potential security threats likely to come from disgruntled followers of fugitive MNLF leader Nur Misuari, who went into hiding after government forces crushed the Zamboanga siege mounted by Misuari’s men in the City late last year.
Asked if the government was monitoring possible attacks from disgruntled rebels when the new peace agreement with the MILF is finally sealed, Lacierda replied: “If ever we have, I am not in a liberty to discuss it.”
He added: “No. 2, we have always stated that there will be other people who will be naysayers, who have negative views on this peace agreement, but we continue to reach out to them.”
Lacierda also said, “the goal is to arrive at a just and lasting peace in Mindanao” adding that government peace negotiators have already reached out to both the MNLF and to other [MILF] factions.”
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