Support for Bangsamoro pact gains ground

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Various activities meant to push the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) forward  are being held in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with the support of organizations and communities.

Leaders from across the autonomous region, officials of the regional police and the military and incumbent local executives held Tuesday the first ever regional FAB consultation in the restive Sulu province, a stronghold of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

“I’m overwhelmed with the very positive turnout of this activity. Representatives of the local communities came to attend, including those representing our fisherfolks, the business, the religious and agriculture sectors,”  Sulu governor Abdusakur M. Tan told reporters in a text message.

Even Nur Misuari, founder of the MNLF, attended the consultation and sat near Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose province is a bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Mangudadatu said he is grateful to Tan for having invited him to grace the event, which was preceded by last week’s series of FAB consultations in different parts of Maguindanao.

The MILF’s main stronghold in Southern Philippines, Camp Darapanan, is located in Magundanao’s Sultan Kudarat town in the first district of the province.

“It’s nice to see activities of this nature spread in the ARMM like a typhoon or a tsunami, bringing not devastation, but peace and harmony among our people, Muslims and Christians alike,” Mangudadatu said.

The dialogue was held at the Sulu provincial gymnasium near downtown Jolo.

The news and information coordinator of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, Sylvia Calderon, said Governors Jum Akbar of Basilan and  Sadikul Sahali of Tawi-Tawi; Jolo’s catholic vicar, Bishop Lito Lampon of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) congregation; and the grand mufti (cleric) in the province, Shariff Julasiri Abirin, also joined in the dialogue.

Covenant

The event was capped with the signing of a covenant by representatives of the five ARMM provinces --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan Sulu and Tawi-Tawi --- where signatories stated their support to the FAB and President Aquino’s on-going Mindanao peace efforts.

Participants also adopted resolutions calling on the MNLF to extend support to the Mindanao peace process to ensure the sustainability of Malacañang’s effort to foster lasting peace and sustainable in the autonomous region.

Another resolution called on Malacañang and the MILF to allow the participation of representatives from the local governments in the provinces of the autonomous region and its two component cities, Lamitan and Marawi, in the transition commission that will oversee ARMM’s replacement with a new political entity, based on the FAB.

Tan said the FAB dialogue he organized was also meant to unite LGU officials in Sulu to “a common position”  to support the FAB.

Calderon said religious leaders from the Zamboanga peninsula and the Davao provinces also attended the consultation.

Preceding the event in Sulu was a series of FAB consultations in Lanao del Sur, Marawi City, and Maguindanao, participated extensively by local officials and representatives from local sectors and MILF officials.

Snowball effect

Activities  to educate the public and raise their awareness about FAB have snowballed in many areas in Mindanao.

The oldest radio outfits in Mindanao that are owned by the OMI’s Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp. have been airing daily appeals for support to the FAB and the on-going GPH-MILF peace talks.

Students of Central Mindanao’s biggest Catholic school, the Notre Dame University (NDU) here, which is also owned by the OMI, have started converting into murals the walls encircling their 24-hectare campus, showing images depicting solidarity of Muslims and Christians in addressing domestic security concerns.

The NDU pioneered “peace education” in the early 1980s, which is focused on the propagation of Muslim-Christian unity and the values of interfaith dialogues in promoting political stability and socio-economic growth in Southern Philippines.  

Even members of various press clubs in Central Mindanao, many of them trained on “peace journalism” by different peace advocacy outfits in the country and abroad, signed last week a manifesto committing help in disseminating the importance of the October 15 framework deal.