By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA, the Philippines (AA) — The Philippines presidential adviser on the peace process has underlined that while it awaits a meeting later this month in Malaysia with the country’s largest Moro group the two sides have elected to change the terminology behind discussions.
Jesus Dureza told MindaNews late Thursday that the panel will no longer be called a “joint implementation” team, but “simply GPH [Philippine government] panel” that will deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) panel.
“Drop ‘negotiating,’” he said, adding that he and MILF Chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim had agreed that there would be no more such panels because the process is now on its implementation phase.
Instead, there will be an “implementing panel” of five members each, he said, making up a ten-member joint implementing team.
The panel is due to meet in Kuala Lumpur Aug 13-14 to begin work on the implementation of the Bangsamoro peace roadmap.
The peace process is “evolving,” Dureza underlined.
In the interview, Dureza said that the gov’t panel would also discuss the completion of the implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement (FPA) with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The 1996 agreement preceded the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) with the MILF, which has caused some animosity with MNLF factions.
A faction under MNLF leader Nur Misuari considers the 2014 deal a betrayal of the 1996 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation-brokered agreement. In 2013, Misuari — who is currently a fugitive — laid siege to the predominantly Christian city of Zamboanga in 2013 to protest the MILF deal. Around 300 people were killed and thousands of houses razed.
Dureza told MindaNews that he would head the government delegation in the first formal meeting between the government and MILF under the Duterte administration.
On March 27, 2014, the government and the MILF signed the CAB after 17 years of negotiations.
Under the previous president’s roadmap, the agreement was supposed to have been sealed by the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which was supposed to have paved the way for the creation of the Bangsamoro, a new autonomous political entity that would replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The law, however, stalled in Congress earlier this year, as it adjourned for campaigning for the May 9 polls won by Duterte.
On July 18, Duterte approved the peace roadmap presented by new presidential adviser on the peace process Dureza.
Under this roadmap, work on the new proposed Bangsamoro law “will be done simultaneous with the moves to shift to a federal set-up, the latter expected to come later under the planned timeline,” a press release from Dureza’s office said.
The team to meet in Kuala Lumpur will discuss the peace roadmap in accordance with the 2014 CAB and in convergence with the 1996 FPA, and with other sectors, for what would be a broader, more inclusive Bangsamoro Peace roadmap.
