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By Angelo S. Samonte, Reporter
It’s final. President Gloria Arroyo reiterated that her
administration would no longer sign an agreement on ancestral domain
with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) whatever
the Supreme Court decision on the homeland deal would be.
The President standing pat on her decision to
trash the territorial pact came as the European Union backed her
so-called paradigm shift in resolving the nearly four decades of
separatist conflict in Mindanao in southern Philippines.
A former rebel leader, Nur Misuari of the Moro
National Liberation Front (MNLF), on Friday also supported the
government’s peace efforts in the South, an apparent turnaround in
his past criticism that President Arroyo failed to implement the
1996 final peace agreement between Manila and the MNLF.
“We want peace. We don’t want war, and I am
helping [the President] to bring peace to the South,” Misuari said
during a meeting with Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan and senior military and
government officials on Thursday at the provincial capitol in
Patikul town.
In her speech during the 107th anniversary
celebration of the Office of the Solicitor General in Fort Bonifacio
in Makati City on Thursday night, Mrs. Arroyo said she was firmly
closing the door on the controversial agreement “in the light of
the recent violent incidents committed by MILF lawless groups.”
Such groups attacked mostly Christian
communities in four provinces in Mindanao in southern Philippines in
August. Ensuing clashes between government troops and the rebels saw
more than 200 soldiers, insurgents and civilians killed and nearly
half-a-million residents displaced.
Committed to peace
Despite her decision not to sign the agreement,
the President said: “We are committed to doing everything possible
to bring lasting peace to Mindanao and end 40 years of fighting that
has killed more than 120,000 people.”
“It is in the interest of all Filipinos,
Muslim and Christian, to end the violence that has held that part
[Mindanao] of our country back and required an investment of
hundreds of millions of pesos to support our military presence
there,” Mrs. Arroyo added.
To achieve lasting peace in southern
Philippines, the President said, all peace talks would be refocused
from dialogues with the rebels to direct talks with both Muslim and
Christian communities in Mindanao.
She highlighted her new paradigm shift of
disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation, or DDR, which, she
said, would be the “overall framework governing our engagement
with armed groups in peace talks.”
Under this strategy, Mrs. Arroyo said, rebel
forces would be held accountable for all their actions.
“Our people, together with government, will be
the primary force in defining the shape and direction of societal
change, not the force of arms,” she added.
EU backing
In supporting the President’s new tack against
the rebels, Eneko Landaburu, the European Union’s director general
for external affairs, offered to study strengthening the
government’s new policy through development assistance to
Mindanao.
“[We] will help the Philippines find ways to
recuperate the situation. The Philippine government already spent
enormous amounts of effort and government resources for the peace
pact [between Manila and MILF]. They should not go to waste,”
Landabaru said.
Mrs. Arroyo dissolved the government peace panel
on September 3, or a few weeks after the attacks led by rebel
commanders Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar or Bravo. The two MILF
leaders justified the attacks, which they said they launched to
protest the aborted signing of the agreement on ancestral domain on
August 5.
The deal would have added 721 villages to the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao under the Bangsamoro Juridical
Entity, virtually the government for the Muslim homeland.
Philippine Ambassador to Belgium Cristina Ortega
said dissolving the Philippine peace panel was necessary to enable
the government to realign all peace initiatives with disarmament,
demobilization and rehabilitation.
“By consulting directly local communities and
holding dialogues with them, the new approach would be more
effective and viable,” she added in a statement.
Peace broker
Rafael Seguis, the Foreign Affairs
undersecretary for special concerns, said Malaysia is still willing
to continue with brokering the peace process in southern
Philippines.
The signing of the homeland deal set in Kuala
Lumpur nearly two months ago was stalled after the Philippine
Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against it on
petitions from local officials in Mindanao.
The Supreme Court is expected to again hear oral
arguments on the petitions in the next few weeks.
Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the presidential adviser
on the peace process, earlier admitted that Malaysian Prime Minister
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had expressed disappointment over the collapse
of the homeland deal.
Seguis, apparently confirming Badawi’s
reaction, said during a chance interview with The Manila Times:
“Malaysia did not like what happened, but they are still willing
to help and give assistance to the Philippines, provided that the
MILF will not resort to violence.”
Esperon on Friday expressed confidence that the
government could achieve peace in Mindanao regardless of the
resistance of the MILF.
“No matter how bad the damage [inflicted by
the rebels] is, there is still hope to achieve peace,” he said
during a media forum at Hotel Rembrandt in Quezon City.
Like the President, Esperon insisted that the
MILF first turn in Kato and Bravo, plus another rebel commander,
Solaiman Pangalian, to show its sincerity in seeing the peace
process through.
The three commanders have been issued a total of
44 warrants of arrest and they and other rebel leaders are facing a
total of 152 criminal cases.
Supposedly, 16 MILF commands have not joined
followers of Kato, Bravo and Pangalian in battling government
troops, a sign that the rebel leadership remains committed to an
existing ceasefire agreement between the government and the
separatist group.
In throwing his support behind Mrs. Arroyo’s
peace initiatives, Misuari said he had been asked by the President
to help quiet down the rebellion in Mindanao.
He spoke with Tan, Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban,
commander of military forces in Sulu, and Undersecretary Nabil Tan,
a presidential adviser, about his role as a peacemaker.
Misuari also met with his loyal forces in Sulu
led by Habier Malik, who is wanted by Philippine authorities for
previously leading a series of attacks on government troops in Sulu.
In September, he said that the MNLF had nothing
to do with the peace talks between the government and the MILF.
“We are not involved [in the peace process between them]. We are
not a party to that [process]. We are not bound by any consequences
of any peace agreement.”
Misuari is facing rebellion charges over a
failed attempt of his followers to seize a major military base in
Sulu. He fled to Sabah, his former refuge, but was arrested by
Malaysian authorities and sent back to Manila. Misuari is currently
out on bail.
-- Llanesca T. Panti, Al Jacinto And Jefferson Antiporda
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