Calls for resumption of BBL talks highlight ARMM sports meet’s launch

MAGUINDANAO – Officials on Thursday launched the regional athletic meet in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with calls for the resumption of congressional deliberations on the pending draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

Delegates from the ARMM’s Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Sulu provinces first paraded around the town center of Parang in the first district of the province before the region’s chief executive, Gov. Mujiv Hataman, and other leaders took turns appealing for the continuation of the now 18-year peace overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Hataman said the enactment into law of the draft BBL is the only solution to the “Moro issue” hounding the nation since the late 1960s.

“Let us not allow the January 25 `Mamasapano incident’ hinder the peace process and ruin the draft BBL,” Hataman said.

At least 44 police commandos, 18 MILF guerillas and four innocent civilians were killed in a series of firefights that rocked three barangays in Mamasapano, Maguindanao last January 25, which erupted less than an hour after policemen had killed Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir in a dawn raid at his hideout in a secluded district in the west of the municipality.

The incident, which shook the nation to its core, also bedeviled the efforts of the government and the MILF to establish a Bangsamoro self-governing political entity to supposedly replace the ARMM this year, under a peace deal dubbed Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, which both sides forged on March 27, 2014.

In separate messages during the opening program of the ARMM meet, Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and the congressional representative of the first district of the province, Sandra Sema, said they are more worried of a resumption of hostilities between the government and the MILF than embracing a new Bangsamoro government led by the rebel group.

“If we fail today, we shall rise again next day and do our best to solve this decades-old `Moro problem’ through peaceful efforts. We are resilient people, never been conquered, never been subjugated, loyal to our customs and traditions and our religion," Sema said.

The lawmaker is wife of former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, chairman of the most politically active faction in the Moro National Liberation Front, a group visibly not hostile to the MILF.

A second, smaller MNLF faction, the one led by the now fugitive Nur Misuari, is rabidly opposed to the GPH-MILF peace initiative.

Misuari, a Tausog from Sulu, had earlier said the peace deal between the government and the MILF had effectively abrogated the September 2, 1996 final peace accord between the government and the MNLF.

Mangudadatu had told participants to the ARMM regional meet to continue exemplifying resilience and never stop from manifesting support to the GPH-MILF peace overture.

Mangudadatu said armed conflicts will only worsen underdevelopment and illiteracy plaguing impoverished Moro communities in the south.

Mangudadatu said he is convinced that the draft BBL, the enabling measure for the creation of an MILF-led Bangsamoro government, is the best solution to the peace and security issues besetting Southern Mindanao.

“Military solutions have all failed. It is time to use socio-economic, political and spiritual interventions now to address the `Moro issue,' a nagging issue we have all been trying to resolve peacefully,” Mangudadatu said.

The regional meet is also participated in by delegates from the ARMM's two cities, Marawi and Lamitan, the provincial capitals of Lanao del Sur and Basilan, respectively.

Hataman said the five-day meet will also give athletes from the ARMM provinces a chance to get together and foster camaraderie among them through fellowship activities and sports competitions.