Tokyo meeting shows PH, MILF sincere about peace talks–Mindanao execs
KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines – Mindanao leaders support President Benigno Aquino III’s decision to meet with Moro rebel leader Murad Ebrahim in Tokyo on Thursday evening to discuss the peace process.
North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza said it showed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that the government was serious in resolving the decades-old Moro rebellion, which has killed tens of thousands of people and placed residents of many areas in Mindanao in despair.
North Cotabato is among the provinces where violence between the government and the MILF occurs on a regular basis.
“The meeting showed commitment to the peace negotiations, contrary to perceptions,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said she was optimistic that following the meeting, the Aquino government would find a solution to the Moro problem “anchored on matuwid na daan [righteous road], not on pressure or political accommodation.”
Mendoza also praised the government for being transparent about the meeting.
“I’m happy to learn from [Professor Marvic] Leonen that this administration learned a lesson from the [Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain], short of saying they don’t want a repeat of the bloody consequence the MOA-AD brought about by lack of transparency, the absence of full disclosure of its contents and the lack of public consultation,” she said.
Former North Cotabato governor Emmanuel Piñol, who has been at the forefront of the campaign against a Moro territory, admitted he was surprised by the meeting “but not scared.”
“That was what I felt when news of President Benigno S. Aquino’s meeting with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Tokyo, Japan broke out in the media,” he said in a statement.
Piñol said people immediately asked him if Aquino had betrayed the Christian population of Mindanao by meeting with Ebrahim.
“My response was ‘Relax. Let’s give him an elbow room in handling this problem,’” he said.
Piñol said while Aquino may have violated diplomatic protocols by talking directly to a rebel leader, who has not yet signed a peace deal with the Philippine government, he showed his commitment to “bring the conflict in the South, which has stunted the growth of the region and caused untold miseries to the people, to a peaceful end.”
“I am comfortable with this President knowing where he comes from prior to his ascendancy to the highest position in the land and certain of his noble intentions for the Filipino people,” Piñol said. “This is a President whose attitude is that of a Big Brother who would like to bring conflicting parties to an honest tête-à-tête, much like squabbling kids who are brought together and asked: ‘Hey, what’s your problem?’,” he added.
Piñol said the meeting showed how simply Aquino regarded the peace process with the MILF.
“This was what was lacking in the previous peace negotiations effort. It was just too formal and bound by diplomatic protocols and formalities that it hardly moved forward,” he said.
“If there is any display of naïveté, this was the best example,” he said.
“It is just like telling the MILF chairman: ‘Brod, halika ka. Mag-usap nga tayo nang masinsinan. Ano ba talaga ang gusto nyo? [Brod, come here. Let’s talk sincerely. What is it really that you want?],’” Piñol added.
“And this is the correct attitude in addressing the Mindanao problem. This is the position I and many others have espoused for so long. Those involved in the conflict must sit down as Filipinos and come up with a solution to a local problem,” he said.
In Zamboanga City, Mayor Celso Lobregat said “we were surprised” by the meeting.
But he quickly said he was hopeful it would cause the peace talks to continue successfully.
Lobregat said he would also urge the government to continue to be transparent about the talks.
“We are all for peace, we are in search of a lasting peace and the government must consider the sentiments of the people,” he said.
In Maguindanao, Ustadz Ameril Ombra Kato, who bolted from the MILF to form the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), told the Inquirer he was hoping the meeting would really spell good news for the Moro people.
“I hope it was for the best interest of the Bangsamoro, the kind of interest originally espoused by our [MILF] founding chair [Salamat Hashim],” Kato said in a mixture of Filipino and Visayan.
But Kato admitted he had misgivings about the meeting.
“I doubt if the meeting would end with a future signed agreement acceptable to all inhabitants,” he said, describing the peace process as “nothing but political trash.”
In Cotabato City, Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema, who chairs a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front, also welcomed the meeting.
“President Aquino and Murad meeting was a welcome and positive action on both sides. There must be a very positive change on the positions of both the GPH and MILF in their search for peace. The MNLF pray that whatever understanding or agreement they may reach could be implemented to the letter and spirit unlike the GPH-MNLF agreement, which until now has not been implemented in letter and spirit,” Sema said.
The MNLF has been asking the government to let it govern in basically the same territory that the MILF has been claiming, saying it was defined by the 1996 peace treaty.
Peace advocates speaking to the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Davao City also viewed the meeting as “a big boost to the peace efforts in Mindanao.”
“Clearly the peace panels will resume with the formal peace negotiations with a renewed confidence. The President’s move was a grand gesture of peace and sincerity and political will to strike a peace settlement,” Mary Ann Arnado, secretary general of Mindanao Peoples Caucus, said.
Arnado, who was among those who questioned Aquino’s sincerity for not mentioning the peace talks in his state of the nation address, said the President redeemed himself when he went out of his way to talk to Ebrahim.
“The meeting speaks more than a thousand speeches. What he failed to mention in his state of the nation address, he has definitely expressed a hundredfold by talking to Murad. The gesture is worth more than a thousand words,” she said.
Carlos Isagani Zarate, secretary general of the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao, said “there is no reason why he cannot extend the same gesture to the NDFP.”
“If he cannot extend the same gesture to the other half of the peace process coin, then his meeting with chair Murad can be interpreted as just a ploy, part of the strategy to coopt the MILF, neutralize it so that the government can concentrate on its plan of defeating the NDF forces,” Zarate said.
(Reports from Carlo Agamon, Williamor Magbanua, Charlie Señase, Edwin Fernandez, Jeffrey Tupas, Julie Alipala and Nash Maulana, Inquirer Mindanao)
