With the unfortunate fate of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in the hands of the Philippine Congress during the administration of President Benigno Aquino, the Social Welfare Committee (SWC) opted to conduct massive advocacy activities in 2015 on the gains of the peace process to address the frustrations felt by the Bangsamoro (BM) people. Culmination of such massive advocacy activities was done during the SWC’s 7th annual general assembly in 2015 with the objective clearly reflected in the assembly’s theme “Preserving the Gains of the Peace Process.”
This year’s 8th SWC Annual General Assembly’s theme: “Fulfilling Women’s Role in Islam: A Strength to the New BM Road Map to Peace,” SWC leadership sends its strong message to all its members with more than 15,000 women to unite and work harder in support for the new BM road map to peace.
This 2016 SWC annual general assembly held at Darapanan, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao on December 17-18, 2016 was graced by no less than the Chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Al Haj Murad Ebrahim who was the Guest Speaker and by the MILF Chief of Staff, Sammy Al-Mansor who spoke about SWC’s place in the United BM Justice Party (UBJP).
Al Mansor, who was the first speaker, discussed briefly where SWC is placed in the UBJP structure and emphasized that SWC will never be left out from the UBJP. He also gave the assurance that all MILF members shall also form part of the UBJP. He also warned SWC members especially those single women members that because of the emergence of different terrorist groups they have to be critically observant of men proposing for marriage to avoid being married to an ISIS man or other terrorist group.
The MILF Chair spoke on “SWC Role to the Opportunities and Challenges of the New BM Road Map to Peace” emphasizing on what opportunities are seen that need to be promoted, developed and maximized and the challenges that need to be addressed to neutralize all the road blocks for the peace process to succeed.
Chair Alhaj Murad Ebrahim gave some opportunities for the BM road map to peace and urged SWC to think of what the SWC can do to help maximize these opportunities. The first opportunity he mentioned was the President’s consistent pronouncement to implement all signed peace agreements which include the Comprehensive Agreement of the Bangsamoro (CAB) and also his commitment to pass the enhanced Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) or the Bangsamoro Enabling Law (BEL).
Another opportunity he added was the fact that while majority of the Filipinos are anti-Muslim, the President seemed to be different from them with his open claim that he has a Muslim bloodline with a Maranao root.
The other opportunity shared by the MILF Chair, was the President’s recognition of the injustices done to the Bangsamoro. He also stressed that changing the negotiation peace panel to implementing peace panel is another advantage to the Bangsamoro because this will ensure implementation of the CAB.
On the challenges, MILF Chair Al Haj Murad, gave emphasis on the possible delay of the BTC operationalization. He said that the members of the BTC were not yet submitted to the President, almost a month delay on the target date of submission on Nov. 30, 2016.
For the MILF, the list of eleven (11) members, he said, was already submitted to OPAPP on Dec. 14, 2016 while the OPAPP are still on the process of finalizing the list of the ten (10) GPH-BTC members.
He said OPAPP is facing difficulty in the selection process for GPH-BTC members with the withdrawal of MNLF Nur Misuari’s group who will have three (3) supposed members in the GPH side.
Also for the sultanates, OPAPP he said finds it hard to choose who can represent them from among the so many sultanates. However, the delay which can be a major roadblock can be avoided considering that in the drafting of the BEL, the agreed version of the BBL will be the working paper for the drafting of the BEL by the BTC Commissioners, thus, will make the work faster for them.
Another challenge he mentioned was the unconstitutional issues of the CAB which will be parked to wait for the charter change deliberation. Other issue shared by the MILF Chair was on the government’s stand to make the BM continuing peace process a domestic issue which the MILF opposes because MILF believes that without facilitation of a foreign country specifically the Malaysian Government, the peace process will not be pursued accordingly.
Chairman Al Haj Murad ended his message with a reminder to the MILF organization as a whole to work very hard to neutralize the challenges and ensure the peace process to succeed. He finally ended by saying, “Very important is to ready ourselves and do whatever is needed for us to achieve our ideological objective of Li ilahi kalimatullah.”
The second part of the assembly’s program was the awarding ceremony for the best performing provinces in terms of implementing the SWC programs and activities. Ligawasan province is the leading of all the provinces in achieving more awards followed by Maguindanao and the rest of the provinces.
http://www.luwaran.net/home/index.php/news/20-central-mindanao/1006-swc-holds-2016-annual-assembly-with-the-theme-fulfilling-women-s-role-in-islam-a-strength-to-the-new-bm-road-map-to-peace
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