MILF sticks to points settled in signed agreement

Members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Malaysian facilitator of the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front arrived Saturday afternoon to observe a meeting between the two peace panels to thresh out differences over the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, including the use of the plural form in some of terms, the Inquirer learned.

An Inquirer source said Tengku Datu Abdul Ghafar Tengku bin Mohamed would be observing the special meeting along with members of the International Contact Group (ICG). The source requested anonymity for lack of authority to speak to the media but is privy to the long-drawn- out peace process between the two parties.

Both Datu Tengku and the ICG, which is composed of representatives from the United Kingdom, Japan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, have been instrumental in helping the government and MILF panels resolve contentious issues throughout the peace negotiations.

The peace panels are meeting to arrive at an “agreed version” of the draft BBL that will be submitted to Congress for passage into law.

The MILF official Web site, luwaran.com, said in its weekly editorial that the Malacañang review team was insisting on its revisions to the draft BBL, changing some settled issues such as ancestral domain to ancestral domains, Bangsamoro people to Bangsamoro peoples, and central government to national government.

Until Luwaran’s editorial, no specific contentious issues had been made public.

“The OP’s (Office of the President) comments on the BBL, which is essentially the position pursued by the GPH peace panel, dilutes the text and have in many instances  departed from the letter and spirit of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) and its Annexes, which is the basis of the crafting of the BBL,” the MILF said.

“Moreover, the OP adopted a very conservative interpretation of the Constitution, which is a radical departure from what the government has been saying—and promised—that the flexibility of the Constitution would enable them to implement the FAB and its Annexes. Fourth, many of the delays are caused by issues that were already settled in the FAB and its Annexes but are kept coming back and forth at the instance of the GPH, e.g., ancestral domain to ancestral domains, central to national, Bangsamoro people to Bangsamoro peoples, etc.,” it added.

President Benigno Aquino, with his advisers and the peace panel, met with the members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission on Thursday. He urged both parties to work together to achieve the common goal of attaining a law that would finally establish peace in Mindanao.

However, MILF chief negotiator and BTC chairman Mohagher Iqbal was conspicuously absent from the meeting in Malacañang.