You won’t be left out, Palace assures Misuari

MNLF founding chair Nur Misuari: Assured AP PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang on Monday sought to appease Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founding chair Nur Misuari, who is threatening to declare independence from the Philippines, saying the final peace agreement with the Moro rebels would cover all the Bangsamoro people.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda urged Misuari to take a look at the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) not from the perspective of a Moro leader but with the eyes of the Bangsamoro people who would benefit from it.

Lacierda said the final agreement would cover the MNLF that forged a peace with the government in 1996, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that is now negotiating with the government, and the lumad (indigenous peoples of Mindanao).

“The Bangsamoro Framework Agreement will benefit all Bangsamoro. It includes [everyone], whether you are MILF or MNLF or lumad,” he said in a Malacañang briefing.

The FAB and its annexes will constitute the final agreement that the government is eyeing to sign with the MILF this year that would eventually define a new Bangsamoro territory with its own powers, which would replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The ARMM was carved under the peace agreement between the government and the MNLF in 1996. The MILF separated from the MNLF after the signing of the agreement.

Misuari has threatened to hold an “independence assembly” to discuss a draft constitution for a Bangsamoro republic over the planned abrogation of the 1996 accord.

But government officials clarified that only the tripartite review mechanism of the agreement was being terminated so that the government could now engage the MNLF to find a comprehensive political settlement to the conflict in Mindanao.

“From the start, what the GPH proposed to complete was the review process, not the closure of the peace process or the abrogation of the 1996 final peace agreement,” said Secretary Teresita Deles, presidential adviser on the peace process.

Misuari had called the FAB illegal in view of the “internationally recognized” 1996 peace pact, and threatened to challenge it in international courts. He rejected government offers for MNLF seats in the Transition Commission that would draft the basic law for the establishment of Bangsamoro.

Lacierda said that even Indonesia, which was facilitating the talks with the MNLF, was backing the completion of the peace agreement with the MILF.

“It’s very clear with the facilitator—Indonesia is our facilitator with the talks between GPH and the MNLF—that they support the completion, not the abrogation, of any agreement,” he said.

Deles said Indonesian Foreign Minister Martin Natalegawa, whom she met with in Jakarta last Friday to discuss the status of the review of the 1996 agreement, had voiced support for the Philippine government’s efforts to ensure a comprehensive settlement of the conflict in Mindanao.