Gov’t, MILF meet today in Malaysia

MNLF remains Bangsamoro people’s sole representative to OIC

The peace panels of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are scheduled to meet starting today in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to discuss issues on normalization, a reliable source told Manila Bulletin yesterday.

The source said the MILF peace panel, led by Mohagher Iqbal, left already for Kuala Lumpur to meet with his counterpart from the Government of the Philippines (GPH) panel, referring to government chief negotiator Prof. Miriam Coronel Ferrer.

The source, who bared that the meeting will be held May 29-30 or even longer if the need arises, said he learned that the main agenda concerns normalization and other peripheral issues.

Normalization, he explained, is the fourth annex of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB)

and contains the proposed decommissioning of the weapons and combatants of the MILF, among other issues. The FAB is now part of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) of the GPH and MILF.

“I will not be surprised if the GPH and the MILF panels also discuss the delay of the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL),” he said.

As this developed, former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin G. Sema, who chairs a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), said yesterday that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) met with representatives of GPH and MNLF leaders at the sidelines of the 42nd Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (OIC-CFM) in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

“The MNLF and the GPH, along with the OIC, had exploratory talks at the sidelines of the OIC-CFM meeting to resume tripartite talks in June, 2015,” said Sema in a text message.

Sema said also that the OIC has retained the MNLF as observer and sole representative of the Bangsamoro people to the pan-Islamic organization.

Ambassador Sayyed Kaseem El-Masry, the OIC special envoy for peace for the Philippines, chaired the OIC- GPH-MNLF meeting. Those who participated in the meeting were Sema, Undersecretary Jose Lorena of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), Hatimil Hassan, Bayan Balt; Ustadhz Abdulbaqi Abubakar, Bayan Balt, and Randolph Parcasio.

The OIC first convened the main Tripartite Meeting in 2008 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two more meetings were held in Manila and in Istanbul, Turkey.

The tripartite talks concerned the review of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement (FPA) signed by the GPH and the MNLF as questions on its full implementation arose.

To resolve the questions, the OIC convened the three-party meeting to tackle the “Question of Muslims in Southern Philippines.”

However, the review of the FPA had stalled, and until now has not been resumed.

Gov’t peace panel stays Meanwhile, President Aquino is unlikely to fire the government peace negotiators despite the treason charges filed against them.

Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. maintained that the government peace panel chaired by Ferrer committed no crime in pushing for a peace agreement with the MILF.

“Our government officials are doing their job. Since they were appointed, they pursued the peace process in Mindanao that has yielded the Framework Agreement, the Comprehensive Agreement, and now the proposed law on Bangsamoro,” Coloma said in Filipino during a recent media interview.

“The view that they committed a crime is unlikely since they are carrying out their duty to promote the welfare of the Philippines,” he added.

Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza and three others filed a complaint for treason and inciting to sedition against the government peace panel negotiators as well as the MILF for pushing for the passage of a law creating a Bangsamoro state in the country. (With a report from Genalyn D. Kabiling)