THE Moro Islamic Liberation Front has agreed to junk the failed Bangsamoro Basic Law in favor of the government’s proposal for a new enabling law to reimplement the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro ahead of a planned shift to a federal form of government, Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza said Thursday.
Dureza’s announcement came as President Rodrigo Duterte called on all sides to strive for peace and end decades of conflict in Mindanao.
“I am pleading for peace, even to the Abu Sayyaf because you have committed so many crimes,” Duterte said. “Remove the anger, hate would drive you to kill,” he said in a speech in Isabela, Basilan.
Duterte also renewed his warning to Abu Sayyaf bandits that the “day of reckoning” would come soon.
Dureza said MILF Chairman Al Murad Ybrahim welcomed the new peace roadmap that would replace the failed BBL and protect the new law from constitutional problems.
“We will work on this ASAP but we need to hear inputs coming from a wide cross section,” he said.
Earlier, Dureza met with Murad to iron out details on how to implement the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which included a “more inclusive proposed enabling law” and the consolidation of various peace agreements entered into by the government.
“We would start where the peace overture was stopped [during the past administration] and take off from there,” Dureza said referring to the failure of Congress to act on time and pass into law the Bangsamoro Basic Law, which should have enabled the transition of the old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao into the Bangsamoro regional government.
“We should act on this as soon as possible for us and that of the present Congress to have ample time to amend certain provisions of the Constitution, if necessary, to keep the talks within the bounds of law,” he added.
In an interview with reporters, Murad had earlier downplayed President Duterte’s pitch of federalism for the Bangsamoro territories to end decades of conflict in Mindanao, as the group continually pushed for the passage of the BBL.
MILF vice chair Ghazali Jhaafar said further that a shift to the federal form of government “would take time to legislate and thus dampen the hopes of the Bangsamoro fighters.”
The MILF also expressed disgust on plans to hold public consultations on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, saying that “any consultation asking the same people or repeating the same issues will only slow down, if not stifle, the legislative process.”
“We say that federalization per se may solve the general problem of the country but we feel that it may or may not solve the specific problem in the Bangsamoro homeland,” Murad said in early July.
“We will still push for the continuity of peace process and then the implementation [of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro], because we said practically the negotiation has already ended. It’s a matter of implementation of the agreement [through BBL],” he added.
Dureza, however, said that both parties will now start the discussion about forming a new government—to be marked by a formal resumption of the implementation phase, the launch of an “implementing team,” to be composed of five members from the government and five members from the MILF.
“We will continue the process. We are not reinventing here. We will build on what has already been gained,” he said.
“All mechanisms for implementation that are already there will be maintained,” he added.
He said that the recommendations coming from the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission will be addressed since they refer to Bangsamoro injustice.
The MILF, meanwhile, said they are looking forward to a logical conclusion of the peace process.
“The peace panels began negotiations 17 years ago and we do not like to go to square one so we agreed to resume where our talks were halted prior to the assumption of the Duterte administration,” Murad said.
ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman meanwhile, said that the peace roadmap being approved within a month of the President’s assumption into office reflects his administration’s commitment to peace and urgency of the issue.
“We also appreciate the sense of urgency that guided the decision to work on a new proposed Bangsamoro enabling law alongside moves toward the planned shift to federalism, acknowledging that the shift would take time relative to pursuing a legislation affirming the gains of a peace process that has been in motion for more than a decade,” the governor said.
