Galvez says gov’t to finish process of disarming MILF fighters before 2025

National Security Adviser Carlito Galvez, Jr. attends the Committee on Foreign Affairs inquiry on the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) in this file photo taken on April 19, 2023. Senate PRIB file photo / Joseph Vidal

MANILA, Philippines — The disarming process of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members will be finished before the first election of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s (BARRM) government in 2025.

Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity, has revealed this development during the sidelines of the State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“Our timeline is hopefully, before the BARRM election, we finished the decommissioning [process] of the remaining [firearms],” Galvez said during a chance interview after the post-State of the Nation Address (Sona) forum held in Pasay City.

To recall, former President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a law postponing the first ever elections in the region from 2022 to 2025.

Galvez said that since 2014, the government has since decommissioned at least 24,600 firearms from the MILF, while around 15,300 members have yet to be disarmed.

He said that the decommissioning process of 1,300 firearms will push through in August this year.

For 2024, a total of 7,000 firearms will be decommissioned, while the remaining 7,000 will be discarded in 2025, according to Galvez.

The decommissioning process is part of the peace deal that the MILF signed with the government in March 2014.

JPV