MILF tells gov't to 'fuse ranks' to form peace process national agenda

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Tuesday reiterated to the national government to make the peace process a national agenda not just of the executive department headed by the president.

Muhammad Ameen, chairperson of the MILF Secretariat, described the present peace process policy of the Arroyo administration as a monolithic approach thereby lacking the active support of the legislative branch or Congress.

Ameen made the first call on the Arroyo last August 28, 2007.

He urged the Philippine government, composed of three branches, the Executive, the Judiciary, and the Legislative, to treat the peace talks as a grand national agenda.

“This will make the peace negotiations succeed especially in the implementation phase,” he said.

He also urged the government to make this policy a multilateral agenda involving all the political parties especially the ruling party and the dominant opposition.

He observed that by being an executive agenda the peace process is being viewed by the other political parties with political color and therefore invites criticism from them.

When the MILF and government peace negotiators signed the 29 consensus points on ancestral domain aspect of the Tripoli Agreement of 2001, especially the future Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) some legislators and local executives lambasted the deal as a “sell-out” of the national territor.

Two of the harshest critics were Zamboanga City Mayor Lorenzo Lobregat and former North Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Pinol.

The GRP-MILF Peace Talks remained stalled since September 2006 over the issue of territory and a possible resumption this month is most unlikely, according to one member of the MILF panel, who requested anonymity, citing no reason for the delay.

He disclosed that Arroyo wanted a resumption of the talks but the new GRP peace panel chairman, Secretary Rodolfo Garcia, appeared hesitant without a clear mandate from the government on how to resolve the issue of territory.

President Arroyo, however, announced over the weekend after talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Sydney, Australia that the peace talks would resume this September 27.

On August 27, 2007, the two Parties met in an executive session just to extend the tour of duty of the International Monitoring Team (IMT) for another year from August 31, 2007 to August 31, 2008.

However, this meeting was not resumption, because only three from each peace panel were present. An exploratory talks resumption requires a full panel attendance, which are five from each side plus four-man secretariat from each side.