THE Moro Islamic Liberation Front welcomed the involvement of Moro National Liberation Front founder Nur Misuari in the peace process as the MILF and the government resumed talks in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.
“We welcome the inclusion of MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari in the process. The MNLF and MILF share one common objective which is to establish a self-governing unit for the Moro people in Mindanao,” said MILF Chairman Ebrahim Murad.
“There must be a final closure to this cycle of conflict in Mindanao. The time to do so is now, not later,” Murad said, stressing the urgency of ending four decades of fighting in Mindanao that has claimed 100,000 lives.
Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza said they are looking forward to have a meeting with Misuari “but he is still under legal constraint because of the pending case against him” but there are “direct engagements with him through other channels.”
Dureza said the new efforts will be the new “test bed” for President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to devolve power to the regions under a new federal government that he wants to put in place within his term.
“We’d like to see it also as test bed, a model for what could be a federal state later on when we establish the federal set-up in the Philippines,” Dureza said. “That’s the end game.”
The new talks in Kuala Lumpur was called to discuss how to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, after the 16th Congress failed to pass an implementing law.
But Dureza said the Duterte administration is looking forward to enacting a new law that will contain inputs from all stockholders and merge the MNLF’s 1996 peace agreement, the provisions of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao Law (RA 9054) and the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act.
Murad said the BBL will still be the “working paper” of the new draft to be prepared by the 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission, of which Misuari and Muslimin Sema, who leads another splinter group of the MNLF, will be part of.
“We are willing to enhance provisions of the BBL to accommodate other concerns from different groups,” he said.
The government delegation is headed by Dureza, along with the chairman of the implementing panel Irene Santiago, and its members, namely: Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Undersecretaries Diosita Andot and Nabil Tan, and Assistant Secretaries Dickson Hermoso and Rolando Asuncion were present in the implementation talks with the MILF.
The MILF panel, on the other hand, will include Mohagher Iqbal its chief negotiator.
Members of the Duterte administration, led by Interior Secretary Ismael “Mike” Sueno, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman were also present at the start of the talks.
Dureza said he hopes Congress will be able to pass a version of the law without the unconstitutional provisions of the failed Bangsamoro Basic Law.
“We hope that with the 17th Congress, it will be a brighter future for the enabling law,” Dureza said, adding that the presence of the top leaders of the House of Representatives could be a sign of an “early enactment of an inclusive Bangsamoro enabling law.”