GMA to attend OIC summit

President Arroyo will attend the opening session of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Malaysia in October, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said yesterday.

Mrs. Arroyo would become only the fourth head of state outside the 57-member Muslim block to attend an OIC summit, after Russia, South Africa and Ghana, Bunye told reporters.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad extended the invitation to Mrs. Arroyo and "the President has accepted the invitation," Bunye said.

The summit, which is scheduled for mid-October, takes place every three years. The last summit was held in 2000 in Doha, Qatar.

The Philippines has applied for observer status at the OIC, which has tried to bring peace to the country’s troubled south, where Muslim rebels have been waging a decades-long rebellion aimed at establishing an independent Islamic state.

In 1996, the OIC brokered a peace pact between Manila and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which dropped its independence bid for limited self-rule in the South.

But a splinter group, the 12,500-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), was left out of the accord.

Malaysia is hosting peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government.

The Palace announcement of Mrs. Arroyo’s acceptance of Mahathir’s invitation triggered speculations that the President’s trip to Kuala Lumpur may be setting the stage for the conclusion of the government’s final peace agreement with the MILF.

Bunye, however, told The STAR that the presidential trip is "too short" a period for the government and the MILF to wrap up the peace talks.

Bunye cited the "optimistic" projection of presidential adviser on the peace process Eduardo Ermita that the negotiations might take 90 days to complete.

Malaysia, which is set to assume the chairmanship of the OIC Committee of the Eight, is the third party facilitator of the government-MILF peace talks.

Ermita, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Paruk Hussin also attended the 30th OIC meeting in Iran last May.

Ermita said that in that meeting, the Philippines reported full compliance to the OIC-brokered 1996 government peace agreement (with the MNLF). — AFP, Marichu Villanueva