FRANCISCO S. TATAD
AFTER Cory Aquino became president in 1986, one of the first things she did was to seek out Nur Misuari, founding chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front. Through the Tripoli Agreement brokered by Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in 1976, which provided for Muslim autonomy in Mindanao, the MNLF and the Philippine government had been conducting peace talks, but these collapsed for various reasons, leading to a resumption of violence.