MILF hoping for peace accord in ’06

DAVAO CITY — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is hoping that a final peace agreement will be signed within the year, 10 years after exploratory talks started in 1986 between the government and the Moro rebel faction.

"The prospects are bright for 2006. We are optimistic that a final peace agreement shall be signed within this year," MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told The STAR.

Although preliminary discussions have been held between the two panels in the technical committee levels since 2000, formal talks have yet to resume.

The formal talks have bogged down in 2000 following strong disagreements on contentious issues such as ancestral domain, as well as the question of who shall manage the proposed Bangsamoro rehabilitation and development package the government is eyeing for the MILF.

Kabalu explained that the MILF has not lost hope that a peace accord will finally be signed.

He added that the entire peace process has already gone far and it all efforts will go to waste if no final peace accord is be signed.

"We have gone this far in the peace process and we do not want that everything we have worked for would just go to waste. We also do not want to lose what the peace process has achieved so far," Kabalu said.

Besides, he explained, the signing of a final peace accord would not only benefit the MILF but all Filipinos.

Meanwhile, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is also keen on helping iron out a comprehensive peace pact between the government and the MILF.

MNLF chairman Hatimil Hassan, who is speaker of the Regional Legislative Assembly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said they promised MILF chieftain Al-Haj Murad that they will not oppose the peace pact. — With John Unson