DAVAO CITY—The Duterte administration will follow a different “roadmap” in resolving the long-standing conflict with Moro secessionists and communist insurgents, but stakeholders will be properly consulted in the process, veteran peace negotiator Jesus Dureza said Monday.
Dureza, whom Duterte has named as his presidential adviser on the peace process, said the incoming Duterte administration is looking at new ways to reach peace in Mindanao, including the possibility of ditching the controversial Bangsamoro Basic Law which was defeated in the 16th Congress.
“We are working on our own, possible roadmap from here onwards. We will be doing a lot of consultations and, of course, we will get our directions directly from Mayor Duterte,” Dureza told The Standard in an interview.
Dureza noted that while the BBL was a by-product of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro that was signed by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on March 27, 2014, it failed to get congressional approval because of perceived constitutional infirmities.
“For the CAB, we will have to see what are the results, the possible lay-out of the roadmap,” Dureza said.
But Dureza declined to predict how the roadmap would take shape because he and designated peace negotiator with the communists, Silvestre Bello III, have yet to assume office.
“I cannot project results of the peace process. We need to assume our positions first. No time tables,” Dureza said, adding that Duterte is bent on ending the conflict with the Moros and the communists.
But even as the Duterte administration was exploring its new roadmap to peace the outgoing Aquino administration announced on Monday that it had signed a “Declaration of Continuity of the Partnership of the GPH and MILF in the Bangsamoro Peace Process h after a two-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
With only a month remaining in its term of office, the Aquino adminsitration signed terms of reference for the establishment of the Bangsamoro Normalization Trust Fund, a multi-donor trust fund envisioned in the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the Annex on Normalization.
According to a Palace statement, they have also signed terms of reference for the Project Board of the Mindanao Trust Fund for the Six Previously Acknowledged MILF Camps.
The statement was signed by Miriam Coronel Ferrer, for the GPH, and Mohagher Iqbal, for the MILF.
