MANILA – Despite the reported “saber-rattling” by the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Mindanao peace process remains on track, a Malacanang official assured on Saturday.
Secretary Edwin Lacierda, the presidential spokesman, said Secretary Teresita Deles, the presidential adviser on the peace process, is confident the MILF will push through with the peace negotiations.
Deles, Lacierda added, also confirmed the MILF is looking forward to the resumption of the peace talks after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on September 9 as announced by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.
The “saber-rattling” issue emerged following the statement of Al-Haj Murad, the MILF chairman, that the front continues to train at least 100,000 partisans, 80 percent of whom are armed.
Media reports said Murad made the revelation during a forum with members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines in one of the MILF camps in Maguindanao province in Mindanao on August 10.
In an article posted on the MILF website, Mohagher Iqbal, the front’s spokesman, claimed that Murad was quoted out of context, particularly by the “Philippine Daily Inquirer,” the country’s largest circulation daily.
Iqbal, also the MILF’s chief negotiator talking peace with the government, appealed to the Inquirer to exercise editorial restraint by refraining from “opinionating” and “editorializing” on Murad’s statement.
“It creates the impression that the MILF is blood-thirsty even during the Ramadan,” Iqbal complained.
Despite Murad’s appeal, however, the Reverend Jose Colin Bagaforo, the auxiliary Catholic bishop of Cotabato province in Mindanao, assailed the MILF for threatening to go to war if the peace talks with the government would fail.
“This only shows the MILF always has a dagger hidden in their sleeves,” Bagaforo pointed out. “I question their sincerity and transparency (in resuming the talks).”
Bagaforo likewise insisted that a careful reading of the Murads statement based on the transcript of the MILF forum with the foreign correspondents would show that Murad had, indeed, threatened about the resurgence of war if the talks would fail.
In his inaugural address on June 30, President Aquino emphasized he was determined to resume talks with both the communist rebels and Muslim separatists
Aquino has appointed Marvic Leonen, an expert on the issue of ancestral domain and the dean of the College of Law of the state-owned University of the Philippines to head the government panel assigned to talk peace with the MILF.
Before the start of the talks, Aquino also ordered Leonen and Deles to make a thorough review of the negotiations made by past administrations to ensure that the two sides would not start from a scratch.
Significantly, the government and the MILF have agreed that Malaysia would continue as the broker or facilitator of the peace negotiations which are being hosted in its capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Peace collapsed in 2008 when the Philippine Supreme Court (SC) nullified a draft agreement between the government and the MILF, which aimed to establish an expanded Moro homeland under the concept of ancestral domain.
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