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COTABATO CITY: The newly-appointed temporary
government chief peace negotiator said Thursday that his assignment
would not complicate the government and Moro Islamic Liberation
Front peace talks which were suspended last year after the parties
failed to agree on the issue of ancestral domain.
Vice-chairman Rudy Rodil, who has
just been named officer in charge (OIC) of the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines (GRP) peace panel, said: “I merely
filled the gap. There will be no implications in the peace process
since I will not, alone, take over the negotiation itself.”
Rodil is also a Mindanao State
University (MSU) professor.
“As vice-chairman of the peace
panel, there are administrative works that need to be addressed so I
just filled the gap. That’s all. If in the next few days the
government found someone who can lead the panel, I’m out and my
work is done,” he said.
Rodil was elevated to temporarily
head the GRP peace panel after Catholic priest Fr. Eliseo Mercado, a
known Mindanao peace advocate, turned down a proposal for him to
head the pool of government negotiators.
Mercado’s rejection of the
offer came after the MILF said it should be a government official,
not a man of the Church that should be representing the government
in dealing with Muslims.
The MILF position was phrased
clearly to indicate that the Muslims had nothing against Fr.
Mercado, who had been helping all the while in the peace efforts for
many years. But the MNILF said that with a priest heading the peace
panel it would be very easy for someone who wants to wreck the talks
to make a political issue of the fact that a Catholic priest is
representing the government in talks with followers of another
religion, Islam.
Earlier this week, Mercado’s
name cropped up to head the GRP panel after former GRP chief
negotiator Secretary Silvestre Afable suddenly resigned.
Rodil said he only learned of his
new assignment from Malacañang Thursday night. He described his
appointment as merely transitional.
Also, he admitted to have issued an instruction to the
government’s Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG) to coordinate with
the MILF on the search for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi
and his abductors in Barangay Sapad, Nunungan, Lanao del Norte.
“With Secretary Afable’s
resignation and being the current GRP deputy chief peace negotiator,
I issued an instruction to extend the AHJAG’s mandate only for
Bossi’s case. Now both panels have to meet for the reactivation of
AHJAG,” Rodil clarified.
He said he merely bridged the gap
so that the interrupted rescue operations for Fr. Bossi will
continue. “We need to work together for his [Bossi] release,” he
said.
The 57-year-old Italian
missionary was snatched on June 10 by an armed 15-man group in Payao
town, Zamboanga Sibugay, while on the way to offer Sunday Mass in
the area.
Bossi is the third Italian priest
to be kidnapped by bandits in the Zamboanga peninsula.
Italian Rev. Luciano Benedetti
was kidnapped in 1998 and Rev. Giuseppe Pierantoni, in 2001. Both
were released by their captors.
Meanwhile, MILF spokesman Eid
Kabalu said they welcomed Rodil’s appointment as he has long been
in the government peace panel.
“Now, we are willing to discuss
again with the government,” Kabalu said.
President Arroyo appointed Rodil
as GRP OIC peace panel head upon the recommendation of Office of the
Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza.
Rodil, besides being a long-time
member of the GRP peace panel, is an MSU history professor and is
knowledgeable in Mindanao’s history.
In 1992 to 1996, he was also a
member of the GRP panel in the negotiations with the Moro National
Liberation Front.
 --PNA
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