A high ranking Moro Islamic Liberation Front official said “a lot” of politicians have been wooing the rebel group in a bid to bolster their respective candidacies among the Moros.
After years of fighting the government from hidden jungle bases in the southern Philippines, an Al-Qaida-linked militant group is facing a new adversary: fellow Muslim insurgents who can match their guerrilla battle tactics and are eager to regain their lost stature by fighting the widely condemned terrorist group.
A Moro human rights group on Friday decried what it described as fresh cases of enforced disappearance against Muslims suspected of being terrorists amid President Aquino’s signing into law of the Anti-Enforced, or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012 last month.
President Aquino on Monday issued an executive order creating a commission that will hammer out a proposed law creating a new autonomous government in Mindanao, the next step to fulfilling an agreement with Moro guerrillas who had given up separatism for broader self-rule.
Members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Maguindanao and other areas were ordered to refrain from wearing combat uniforms and bringing any firearm when going to public areas.
Two persons were killed and three were injured in a gun battle that erupted between two Moro clans in interior villages of this town Sunday, the police said Monday.
While they have yet to craft the final peace agreement, Mohagher Iqbal won’t stop Marvic Leonen from joining the Supreme Court.
The disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas could become a bottleneck in the events leading up to the final peace agreement but it is one of the most important steps for peace, British Ambassador Stephen Lillie said.
The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process on Tuesday said that an ad hoc interagency team on the “normalization” provision within the framework agreement recently signed by the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation began its work Monday.
Celebrity peace ambassador Gerald Anderson canceled an out-of-town trip just to be at Malacañang last October 15 for the signing of the framework agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to create a Moro homeland.
To ensure peace seeps down to the grassroots, Christians, Muslims, and lumad (indigenous people) in Mindanao who were unjustly dispossessed of their land will be compensated under the new autonomous Bangsamoro homeland, according to chief government peace negotiator Marvic Leonen.
The Philippine National Police on Wednesday expressed its willingness to welcome into its ranks Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters if the final peace agreement between the rebel group and the government would include such arrangement.
“We’re almost there.” This was how optimistic a top official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front sounded over the progress of peace talks between MILF and government.
