PH ready to talk peace with disgruntled groups — OPAPP

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) has said it was open to dialogue with “the skeptics and the disgruntled” as the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) aim to complete its long-drawn peace talks next year and submit to Congress a comprehensive peace agreement.

“We expectedly faced many challenges from those who chose to continue the path of violence, the skeptics who have seen earlier similar processes fall back on expectations, and the disgruntled who feel they would lose privileges they have long enjoyed. To all of them, we extend the hand of peace and open ourselves to dialogue and continuous engagement in the hope that we will find fair reconciliation,” the OPAPP said in a statement released on Christmas Eve.

The year 2013 saw many challenges to the peace talks, including the series of deadly bombings in Mindanao orchestrated by a breakaway group of the MILF and the September attack on Zamboanga City by loyalists of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) chairman Nur Misuari, who feared that the government’s impending peace deal with the MILF would set aside their own peace agreement signed in 1996.

The goverment-MILF talks was also stalled for a few months last summer because of disagreements over the wealth-sharing annex, which was eventually signed in July.

The panels are set to finalize in January the normalization annex, the last and final document needed to complete the crafting of the final peace agreement, which will be embodied in a proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law.

“The Annex on Normalization will concretize our vision for a post-conflict Bangsamoro. For this purpose, we shall be putting in place the new infrastructure that would pull together all our efforts in the security, socio-economic and transitional justice aspects,” the OPAPP said.

The peace agreement with the MILF is a cornerstone of the Aquino administration, which will complete its six-year term in two years. The MILF leadership has repeatedly said that a peace deal with the government is possible only under the watch of President Benigno Aquino III, as the group has given its trust to him.

“In all, our efforts at the negotiating table sought to find the good balance between what is just, practical and constitutional for this moment in our people’s history, and those other, higher aspirations that may find fruition and wider acceptability in some later future but not now.  All the time, we based our work on the shared principles of mutual respect, devolution, inclusivity, harmony and good governance. These principles are the essence of the Annexes we have signed,” the OPAPP said.

MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, who also sits in the Transition Commission, said the commission would like to send to Congress the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law for approval by April.