Galvez: P1.2B needed as aid to MILF fighters

PATH TO PEACE Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters brandish their firearms at Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, in this file photo. The government and the MILF are working for the decommissioning of the group’s members and weapons as part of a peace agreement. —BONG S. SARMIENTO

KORONADAL CITY — The government will need P1.2 billion as “goodwill” cash aid to some 12,000 combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who will be decommissioned as part of the normalization process in areas under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. said on Thursday.

Galvez said each decommissioned MILF fighter would be receiving P100,000 in cash once the foreign-led Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB) had validated their identities.

“There is no provision in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro [CAB] that surrendered firearms will be remunerated but as a goodwill of the government … the immediate cash of P25,000 and initial livelihood cash support of P75,000 will be given [to each decommissioned MILF member],” Galvez told the Inquirer in a text message.

Education, skills training

He said the fund would be sourced from the 2019 budget of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, now known as Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity.

Scholarships and skills training would also be provided to the decommissioned MILF fighters and their families to help them become competitive and productive members of mainstream society, Galvez added.

The decommissioning of MILF fighters and the surrender of their weapons were spelled out in the Annex on Normalization of the CAB, the final peace agreement signed by the government and the MILF in 2014.

The peace agreement provides for a political track, which was completed with the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law and the creation of the BARMM; and the normalization track, which includes the dismantling of private armed groups, as well as the transformation of several MILF camps into “progressive and resilient communities.”

IDB’s main task

Galvez said the names of the 12,000 MILF combatants for decommissioning this year had been submitted to the IDB, chaired by a representative from Turkey and composed of a representative each from Norway and Brunei, and four local experts jointly nominated by the Philippine government and the MILF.

The IDB’s main task is to verify, register and inventory the MILF fighters and their weapons.

Galvez said the IDB had assured that if it would start the verification, processing and validation in June, it could finish the decommissioning of 12,000 MILF combatants by October or November this year.