DFA: P-Noy meet with Murad not 'act of treason'

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) today said it will conduct an investigation to identify the unnamed diplomat who said President Benigno Aquino III's meeting with Moro rebel leader Al Haj Murad Ibrahim was an act of treason.

"The unnamed diplomat who remarked that the President's meeting with the MILF chief was 'an act of treason' does not speak for the Department of Foreign Affairs," the department said in a statement issued today.

The DFA said that the entire department backs President Aquino's "out-of-the-box" initiatives to bring peace in Mindanao through a peace pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

"DFA will conduct an investigation to identify the errant official who will be subjected to appropriate disciplinary action," the department said.

The unnamed diplomat was quoted by newspapers as saying that President Aquino should not have met with the MILF and labeled the move as "an act of treason."

The reports indicate that the unnamed diplomat was a woman. One newspaper report repeatedly referred to the unnamed diplomat as a she.

The meeting between Aquino and Murad took place in a hotel in Tokyo on Thursday night.

Marvic Leonen, head of the government's peace panel, said that it was President Aquino who invited Murad to the meeting. He said it was conveyed to the MILF's peace panel during a negotiation meeting last June.

“The meeting was cordial but consisted of a frank and candid exchange of their views about the frames of the continuing peace talks and some possible approaches that the parties can take to bring about a peaceful settlement,” Leonen said.

He declined to disclose the minutes of the meeting, but assured the public that there was no "secret deal" reached.

Leonen said that Aquino and Murad both promised to fast-track the peace negotiations and agreed that a peace pact should be signed during the Aquino administration.

The peace negotiator had played down concerns about the propriety of the President's move, saying that the rebel group is no longer seeking a separate state.

“They are no longer a secessionist group because their proposal does not include independence anymore. They are not asking to be a separate state. And therefore the implications that you are probably imagining, pardon me, are no longer there,” Leonen told a reporter who asked whether the meeting violated any laws since the MILF is a rebel group.