Ex-GMA peace negotiator confirms aid deal with MILF

MANILA, Philippines - Silvestre Afable, former chief peace negotiator with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of then president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, confirmed yesterday that the previous administration had forged an agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to create the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute (BMLI).

In a statement sent through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), Afable said that former presidential adviser on the peace process Jesus Dureza might just be experiencing a memory gap when he denied that the Arroyo administration committed to give P5 million to the MILF.

Afable said he appreciated President Aquino’s decision to give the MILF the P5 million to jumpstart the BMLI.

“I was the government’s chief negotiator with the MILF when, in 2006, we reached agreement (across the negotiating table in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) to set up the BMLI.

“Secretary Jess Dureza was then the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. He may have just forgotten that event,” Afable said.

Afable said the BMLI is an offshoot of an agreement signed by the government with the MILF in 2001 to form the Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA).

He said at that time, the MILF wanted to try its hand at implementing its own development projects.

“As the BDA grew, it needed more personnel who could receive, disburse and account for funds; and supervise incipient development teams. The BMLI was the envisioned training school for these personnel,” Afable said.

Afable said it was they who requested the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) to work on the basic curriculum and provide trainers to the project, which was done with enthusiasm and zeal.

“Institutions such as the BDA and the BMLI must not be treated negatively, because these, alongside the ceasefire, provide the necessary climate for negotiations and stem the urge among fighters to shoot each other. One must be creative in offering alternatives to those who have been used to live by the gun,” Afable said.

Afable said when the government and the MILF restored the ceasefire in 2001, follow up was necessary on two key items. “First, to get an international monitoring team to help make sure the truce holds and create the basic institutions to re-channel the energies of MILF fighters,” he said.

He said confidence-building measures lie in the meat of any peace process anywhere in the world.

“While we seek a political solution in the peace talks, we try to safeguard the ceasefire like precious life itself, and carve out a positive direction for fighters-on-hold who will hopefully trade their guns for ploughshares when a final settlement is reached,” Afable said.

He said the MILF itself has tried its level best to abide by this negotiation-ceasefire-development model as a transitional mechanism to a final political settlement.       

Not cynical

“Many Filipinos are cynical about this, but I appreciate the fact that President Aquino is not,” Afable said.

The administration of President Aquino is trying to fend off criticism that it gave taxpayers’ money to the rebel group when there was no peace agreement yet and the funds could have been used to buy weapons.

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles insisted that Dureza was OPAPP head when the agreement to set up the BMLI was signed by the government.

In a text message to The STAR, Deles said Dureza should check the records.

“I resigned from the government (as Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process) together with the Hyatt 10 on July 8, 2005. He (Dureza) was Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process in 2006. Former government negotiator Yoyong Afable already issued a statement regarding this. It is in the OPAPP website,” Deles said.

Dureza served as presidential adviser on the peace process from 2006 to 2008.

Dureza claimed that Deles had been giving money to the MILF as early as 2005.

Deles was both predecessor and successor of Dureza as head of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process as the former had the post from 2003 to 2005 before resigning with the so-called Hyatt 10 group during the term of then President Arroyo.

Dureza said he had received information that Deles handed over to the MILF the dollar equivalent of P2.5 million in her meetings with the rebel group five years ago.

“I got information that there was really money given to the MILF before. There was an arrangement during the time of Ging (Deles) that P5 million will be given to the MILF with the Malaysians giving half of the amount,” Dureza said in a radio interview.

He said the money was given to the MILF through Datuk Tengku Ghafar, the Malaysian facilitator in the peace talks. It was not clear whether the Malaysian government gave the other half.

He said the P5 million recently released to the MILF was intended for the Bangsamoro Development

Authority, a nongovernment organization that the MILF created to help the rebel group slowly take on the role of administrator of development projects once the rebels achieve autonomy.

Dureza maintained he had “no personal or official knowledge” about the P5 million assistance to the MILF as claimed by Deles, adding that he asked former head of the negotiating panel Rodolfo Garcia to clarify the issue.

He said it would be improper to grant such an amount to the MILF since there was no peace agreement yet, and especially now that Malacañang is asking the rebel group to account for the money.

Dureza said the MILF has repeatedly maintained that it is not covered by Philippine laws, including the Constitution, so the Aquino administration cannot expect it to account for the money.

Financiers

Former military ordinariate and now Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles opposed the move of the Aquino administration to give millions of pesos to the MILF and the communist assassination squad Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) because the government is just financing their armed operations.

Arguelles said when the Aquino administration gives millions of pesos to rebel groups the administration is apparently financing the purchase of ammunition and weapons by the armed groups that would lead to more deaths.

The bishop said he is against the decision of the government to give P5 million to the MILF and P31 million to the ABB for livelihood and other aid to communities where former insurgents and other families live.

Arguelles said he does not believe that giving sizable sums of money to these groups would help bring peace.

“It would mean more dead soldiers, widow and orphans. It (government) is paying them to destroy our country. They are just providing arms to their enemies. They are just making them stronger,” he added.

Instead of giving money to ABB and MILF, the Aquino administration could just forward its donations directly to the people who have been affected by the conflict, through the nongovernmental organizations.

Malacañang earlier said that they would require the MILF to produce an accounting on how the money was spent.