MILF pins hope for peace on Quevedo

PRESIDENT Aquino poses for a photo with Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, after their meeting in Tokyo in August. MALACANANG PHOTO

COTABATO CITY—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Thursday urged Mindanao’s first cardinal, Orlando Quevedo, to use his clout as a respected religious leader and peace broker to promote the peace process between the government and Moro guerrillas and put an end to the bloodshed in the island-region.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chair for political affairs, said guerrillas have high hopes that Quevedo will help in the peace process because of his “track record in fostering peace, harmony and coexistence in Mindanao.”

As a young priest and even as Cotabato archbishop, Quevedo has been active in promoting interreligious dialogue among Christians, Muslims and lumad.

He once said  he considered peace brokering as his “primordial missionary task” and that he had always wanted “to establish just and lasting peace in Mindanao.”

The government’s peace panel in talks with the MILF said the elevation of the 75-year-old Quevedo to a major position in the Catholic hierarchy was a “wonderful blessing and a portent of many positive developments to come as we push for peace in the south.”

“It reflects the recognition that the Vatican gives to the peace process in Mindanao, our very own contribution to the global call of Pope Francis to work for peace,” the government peace panel, led by Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, said in a press statement on Wednesday.

The government’s peace negotiating body also described Quevedo as “a beacon of hope that will surely augur well for the Mindanao peace process.”

Quevedo of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate founded by Blessed Eugene de Mazenod had contemplated on retiring before the Vatican announced his appointment as a cardinal, according to people close to him. Reports from Charlie Señase and Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao