No deadline for MILF peace talks, says Arroyo

COTABATO CITY — President Arroyo is not keen on imposing a timetable in forging a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The President said what she is concerned with is the substance of the accord which both sides will have to craft and that imposing a deadline will only result in a hastily concluded peace agreement with the MILF.

"What we need to talk about is how the MILF can be involved in development efforts in Southern Mindanao," the President said in a press conference after presiding over a Cabinet meeting here yesterday.

Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza, chairman of the government peace panel, said the negotiators will meet here on Jan. 12 to discuss ways to improve the prevailing ceasefire to ensure the cordiality of the peace process.

The peace negotiations started on Jan. 7, 1997, but had repeatedly been stalled by security problems in many flashpoint areas covered by the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, two radical groups, one calling for an end to what they described as "excessive deployment of state forces in predominantly Muslim areas" and the other urging for an increase in wages of Central Mindanao workers, staged separate rallies here, just a block away from Estosan Garden Hotel where the first regional Cabinet meeting was held yesterday.

Police succeeded in confining the protesters to a small area where organizers took turns in urging the President to focus on local concerns, such as the return of evacuees to their communities which were devastated by former President Joseph Estrada’s pacification campaign in the South in 2000.

A third group, whose organizers are known supporters of outgoing Speaker Alvarez Isnaji, former caretaker of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), canceled their plan to stage a rally in front of the Estosan Garden Hotel.

President Arroyo will officiate at today’s symbolic installation of ARMM Gov. Parouk Hussin.