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A draft peace agreement with Muslim rebels waging a separatist
campaign in southern Philippines needs a lot more work before it can
be signed, President Gloria Arroyo’s spokesman said Friday.
Government negotiators resumed consultations
with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Malaysia on
Thursday expecting to set a timetable to sign an agreement on
revenue-sharing on natural resources that would be a cornerstone of
a political settlement. (See related stories A7.)
“There is no good news yet,” Palace
spokesman Jesus Dureza told reporters.
The two sides announced in the previous week
that they had reached a deal on “ancestral domain” in the
Muslim-populated areas of largely Roman Catholic Philippines that
the rebels claim as their homeland.
Formal peace talks with the 12,000-member
guerrilla group, which signed a ceasefire with Manila in 2003, had
stalled for months because of disagreements over what authority the
MILF would exercise over the areas they claim as their ancestral
homeland.
“The meetings are still ongoing and therefore
there is no date yet set for the signing of the ancestral domain
[deal],” Dureza said, while insisting that the delay was not a
setback.
The type and powers of a Muslim government that
would rule the area however “are still something that has to be
worked on,” he added.
The nearly four decades-old rebellion has left
thousands dead and left Mindanao, the southern third of the country,
mired in poverty.
The government has offered a federal-style state
for the Muslims, which make up a large minority in the country.
The Muslims now have a self-rule area that
includes four provinces in the South, created after a 1996 peace
agreement with another Muslim rebel faction.
But Dureza said any agreement to be signed with
the MILF would not be automatically implemented but would have to be
enacted by law or by constitutional amendments.
“Hopefully we’ll have a final settlement as
a legacy of the President before she leaves office,” Dureza said.
President Arroyo’s term ends in mid-2010.
“She wants to leave a peaceful legacy of a
developed and peaceful Mindanao,” he added.
Esperon optimistic
Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the newly appointed
presidential adviser on the peace process, was more optimistic,
saying on Friday that peace in Mindanao seems to be within reach as
the government and the MILF are expected to sign an agreement on
ancestral domain soon.
“We are a few strides away from signing the
[agreement] that includes concept, territory and governance,” he
said. “We hope to ride in this momentum.”
The MILF earlier threatened that they will not
sign any peace pact with the Arroyo government if they were not
given self-determination.
“The concept of the agreement is more than
their land and property. It defines their identity, their roots for
self-governing community and giving respect to their religious and
cultural beliefs,” added Esperon, a former Armed Forces chief of
staff.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo
described the ancestral domain issue as the big challenge for the
peace process.
“We have fought long and hard on this, and we
think we have done all the necessary provisions that will put both
parties on the same page,” he said.
“We feel that the signing of the MOA
[agreement] on ancestral domain will mark the smooth sailing of the
peace process.”
-- AFP with Llanesca T. Panti
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