Arroyo declares truce with MILF

President Arroyo suspended yesterday military operations against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to entice the Muslim secessionist group to return to the peace table.

MILF rebels, however, will not be allowed to return to their former camps.

The President ordered acting Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Armed Forces chief Gen. Angelo Reyes to immediately implement the suspension of military operations (SOMO).

The commander-in-chief clarified that the SOMO should not be misinterpreted by MILF rebels to mean they can retake areas liberated by the AFP.

Mrs. Arroyo raised the possibility of recalling the military units that were taken from their mother units in Luzon and the Visayas to beef up heightened military operations beginning June last year.

However, the decision to withdraw troops would depend on the operational plans of the AFP, she added.

"In the interest of ‘cuentas claras’ (clear accounts), we should clarify that under the SOMO, there shall be no return of territory to the MILF," the President stressed.

"Let not this gesture be misinterpreted," the President said, adding that the government "would not hesitate to act appropriately and preserve peace and order."

"I was sworn to protect the integrity of the land, to consecrate myself to the service of the nation. I will not deviate from this vow. The majesty of the law, especially the Constitution, should prevail always and everywhere," Mrs. Arroyo added.

The President reassured that the government shall "retain the option of calibrated response to preserve law and order and protect the civilian communities from armed depredations" and to secure vital facilities and prevent the regrouping of lawless elements.

She announced the SOMO during her weekly press conference at Malacañang yesterday after the Cabinet unanimously approved confidence-building measures to jump-start the peace process.

Mrs. Arroyo said the Cabinet reached "full consensus" after "close consultation" with Reyes and Ermita, who is concurrently the presidential adviser on the peace process.

She also announced that presidential assistant for Eastern Mindanao and veteran government negotiator Jesus Dureza shall lead the government panel in the peace talks.

The President ordered Ermita to coordinate the blueprint for the Mindanao rehabilitation with Dureza, who is also the officer-in-charge of the Mindanao Economic and Development Council (MEDCO).

Dureza, she said, has already conducted "ground-level" consultations with AFP as well as police and affected civilian groups.

"It’s a unilateral ceasefire which would be indefinite for as long as it’s necessary and based on the consultations made with Mindanaoans on the ground," Dureza said.

Dureza said the next government step will be to get in touch with the thousands of evacuees in Central Mindanao and "encourage them to return to their homes because the area is now peaceful."

Other Mindanao leaders welcomed the SOMO as a positive step toward peace in the strife-torn island.

"This is probably the first and most important action that government has taken to improve the economic and social situation in Mindanao," said Charles Fiebel, an official of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that runs a program for the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM).

"Nothing can be achieved from fighting and fighting," said Mindanao Business Council chairwoman Joji Ilagan-Bian, who described the SOMO as a right step toward sustainable and lasting peace in Mindanao.

"We have to work for peace in an environment that is conducive to it," she added.

"I hope the MILF will take this move as ample proof of the sincerity and determination of the government to take the high road to peace, and that the Front will reciprocate early enough by the positive moves in the same direction," she said.

"In the spirit of reciprocity and goodwill, we strongly urge the MILF to undertake the necessary steps to ensure the success of the peace negotiations and sustain the peace of mind of the people," she added.

For its part, the MILF welcomed the SOMO and is now awaiting "formal communication" from the government to start the peace talks.

"We respect that and our focus of attention is now on the peace talks," MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said in a telephone interview with the ABS-CBN News Channel.

The last time a SOMO was declared with the MILF was during last year’s Ramadan period from Nov. 29 to Dec. 27.

In March last year, then President Joseph Estrada ordered an all-out offensive against the MILF that resulted in the fall of 46 major and satellite rebel camps, including its main Camp Abubakar which was liberated on July 9.

The conflict resulted in the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and the wounding of nearly 200 others while the MILF is believed to have sustained thousands of casualties.

Latest intelligence reports estimate the MILF strength at 12,571 as of end December 2000 compared to 15,693 in 1999. Its firearms reportedly number 9,129 in 2000 from 11,279 in 1999.

Meanwhile, the MILF has asked a Quezon City Court to drop the multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder charges against its chairman Hashim Salamat and five other members for alleged involvement in the five bomb attacks in Metro Manila last Dec. 30.

Despite the looming resumption of peace talks with Muslim secessionists, however, the President said no decision has yet been reached on whether the government would declare a SOMO with communist insurgents.

The President has already named former Justice Secretary Silvestre Bello III as head of the government panel with Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza, lawyers Rene Sarmiento and Jose Luis Gascon and Riza Hontiveros-Baraquiel, as members.

But Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Ma. Sison has rejected government proposals to hold the peace talks in the country.

Sison, now based in the Netherlands, has insisted that the talks should be held "in a neutral venue" outside the Philippines because it would be "mutually convenient and safe."

The communist insurgents, however, named Luis Jalandoni of the National Democratic Front (NDF) as head of the panel. The NDF is the political umbrella group of the left.

Other members of the communist panel are Fidel Agcaoili, Connie Ledesma, Asterio Palima and Jojo Magdiwang, with human rights lawyer Romeo Capulong as general counsel and Antonio Zumel as senior adviser.

Meanwhile, People Power Coalition senatorial candidate Wigberto Tañada urged Sison to reconsider his position and hold the peace talks in the country.

Tañada likewise urged the government to declare a SOMO with the communist rebels and release some political prisoners as a confidence-building measure. — With reports from Benjie Villa, Ding Cervantes, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Edith Regalado