MANILA, Philippines -- The memorandum of agreement over ancestral domain between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government is "binding" even if will not be signed this Tuesday because the MOA has been initialed by both parties, Muslim rebel officials said.

"That is the official position of the MILF, that the MOA is binding because it has been initialed by both parties," MILF Vice Chairman for Political Affairs Ghadzali Jaafar said in a phone interview.

The chief peace negotiator for the MILF, Mohager Iqbal, was quoted as saying on their website, Luwaran.com, that initialing the agreement "constituted a signature of the Philippine government and [the] MILF."

"The signing today [Tuesday] is just a formality, to show to announce to the world that there is a memorandum of agreement," Jaafar said.

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against the signing of the MOA, which would have defined the extent of the MILF's ancestral domain, and would have paved the way for the resumption of formal peace talks.

Jaafar said the chief negotiators, Iqbal from the MILF, and Secretary Rodolfo Garcia from the government, and a Datuk Othman bin Abdulrazak, representative of the Malaysian government, the third-party facilitator of the talks, have affixed their initials on the MOA.

According to the MILF's website, Luwaran.com, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon Jr. also affixed his initials on the agreement.

According to Luwaran.com, the document was initialed initials by the parties concerned on July 27, two days after MILF negotiators walked out on informal negotiations, and accused the government of bringing up previously settled issues.

Jaafar said the initialed document was the same one that would have been signed in Putrajaya, Malaysia on Tuesday.

"It's the same document. Kahit period hindi binago [Even the periods were not changed]," he said.

Esperon, who is in Malaysia, did not immediately return phone calls and text messages seeking comment.