Nene: MILF talks going nowhere

DAVAO CITY — With the government having nothing else to offer as concessions to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), its long-stalled peace negotiations are bound to go nowhere, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel said.

"Nothing would really come out of that peace talks with the MILF because if you give the MILF more than what the government gave the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) when a final peace agreement was signed in 1996, the MNLF would not like it," he said.

He said the MILF is also expected not to accept something lesser than what was granted the MNLF in terms of concessions.

Pimentel was here over the weekend to address the participants in the Mindanao Tri-People’s Summit Against Repression.

"The government cannot give anything else because we are talking about the same territory that was given to the MNLF which could not be given anymore to the MILF," he said.

Recent discussions between the government and the MILF bogged down again on the thorny issue of ancestral domain, particularly on MILF’s proposal for a Bangsamoro Judicial Entity (BJE).

The MILF, meanwhile, said the government has three options in resolving the impasse in the peace talks.

The first option, the MILF said in its website (luwaran.com), is for the government to stand by its original position that any expansion of the present Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for the proposed BJE shall be subjected to "constitutional processes," which the MILF, however, is opposed to since it is "risk-prone."

The second option, according to the MILF, is for the government to grant the rebel front a wider tract of land but minus the "constitutional processes."

But the MILF said the second option is impossible as it would mean a backlash for the Arroyo administration in the 2007 elections.

The MILF said the government may also choose to declare all-out war against the separatist guerrillas, but this would mean a total collapse of the peace process.