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By Julmunir I. Jannaral, Correspondent
COTABATO CITY: The leadership of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) on Wednesday showed indifference to the composition of the
new peace panel of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines
(GRP), saying that Malacañang’s selection of the panel members is
internal to the government.
Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman told The Manila Times
yesterday that the MILF is not very much concerned with the
personalities of the reconstituted GRP peace panel members but more
on their mandate which is more crucial to the success of the peace
process.
“It has always been our stand in the MILF that
the mandate of the government peace panel must take top priority
over anything else. What good is a peace panel that has no mandate
or authority,” Kabalu said.
Asked on the official stand of the MILF
hierarchy, Kabalu said “we kept our official comment on hold until
the GRP officially notifies us through the Malay-sian
secretariat.”
Kabalu, who is also the MILF’s civil-military
affairs chief, made the reaction after President Gloria Arroyo on
Tuesday designated three members of the GRP peace panel that will
resume negotiations with the Moro separatist group.
Presidential Adviser on Peace Process Hermogenes
Esperon Jr. announced the other day that to back-up GRP peace panel
chairman, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, are three
members, namely, Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman;
former Mayor Adelbert Antonino of General Santos City and former
sectoral member of the House of Representatives Ronald Adamat.
Pangandaman, who is a Maranao, will represent
the Filipino Muslims; Antonino, the local government and the
Christians, while Adamat, a Tiruray native of Upi, Maguindanao, will
represent the highlanders (Lumads) or indigenous people.
On the other hand, the MILF has not dissolved
its peace panel headed by Mohagher Iqbal, with three prominent
Muslim lawyers as members namely: Michael Mastura, Lanang Ali, and
Musib Buat and from the academe Dr. Maulana “Bobby” Alonto of
the Mindanao State University in Marawi City.
The MILF spokesman stressed that with respect to
the newly designated government negotiators, the government can
choose whomever it desires and the MILF would have no problem facing
them on the negotiating table.
“But let them come with a clear mandate so
should the government abandon a memorandum of agreement on ancestral
domain or any accord already forged it will not face the same fate
that befell the MoA-AD,” he said.
He was referring to the aborted signing of the
MOA-AD on August 5 in Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that
angered MILF Commanders Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdullah Macapaar or
Bravo and later joined in by Aleem Sulaiman Pangalian in attacking
some Christian villages in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte.
This prompted President Ar-royo to order the
military to launch all-out operations against the three MILF
commanders whom the government declared to be “lawless MILF
groups,” as separate and distinct from the mainstream MILF
organization.
Subsequently, due to petitions in the Supreme
Court filed by Christian political leaders from Mindanao like Vice
Gov. Emma-nuel Pinol of North Cotabato and Mayor Celso Lobregat of
Zamboanga City, the Supreme Court in an en banc decision ruled with
finality that the MOA-AD was “unconstitutional.”
Kabalu said it is not hard to resume the
collapsed peace talks, “we only have to start where we left off,
and that is the MOA-AD.”
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