Nur Misuari. FILE PHOTO
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Mayor Rodrigo Duterte warned Sunday that the government should not keep Nur Misuari out of any new peace settlement in Mindanao, saying that the leader of the Moro rebels at the height of their secessionist revolt in the 1970s was “still a man to reckon with” and had an equally valid and internationally recognized peace agreement with the government.
“We might succeed in convincing everyone to agree on the Bangsamoro, including the courts, but the problem is, what about Misuari?” Duterte said on his local television show “Gikan sa Masa, para sa Masa (From the Masses, for the Masses)” on Sunday.
Duterte was referring to the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law which Congress has been asked to pass as the charter of the proposed Bangsamoro, the name of a broadened politically autonomous entity envisioned to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao that was created under the so-called Final Peace Agreement signed by the Moro National Liberation Front under Nur Misuari and the Philippine government under President Fidel Ramos in 1996.
The Final Peace Agreement was the culmination of peace talks in furtherance of the Tripoli Peace Agreement of 1976 but which frequently broke down over the years. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which had split from the MNLF in the late 1970s, was not a party to the 1996 peace accord.
The Tripoli agreement introduced the concept of regional autonomy for Filipino Muslims, who had been fighting for secession.
Rodrigo said the government cannot now just ignore Misuari, who can still invoke the Tripoli Agreement as a valid agreement brokered by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, then called Organization of the Islamic Conference.
“If ever, if at all, there will be talks again, you cannot ignore Misuari and the Tripoli Agreement, a valid treaty signed by Imelda Marcos in behalf of the Philippine government, we have to honor that, and we have to talk to Misuari,” Duterte said.
“I’ve been telling the peace panel ever since, do not forget Misuari. If I were to be there to talk about peace, I would like to include everyone because Misuari, for all of his faults, is still a man to reckon with,” he added.
“I mean, there are enemies that you cannot kill,” he said, adding that the government has to eventually give him clearance to renew the negotiations.
“If you remove Misuari, who will you talk to?” he asked. “The Abu Sayyaf? There’s no one else, there’s no emerging leader there who could really hold sway over the population.”
Duterte said that if the government really wants to talk peace, it may have to go to the extent of “forgetting the Zamboanga fiasco,” a reference to nearly a month of heavy fighting in September last year between government forces and MNLF guerrillas protesting the Bangsamoro peace process from which they felt left out. More than 200 people were killed in the fighting, which razed sections of Zamboanga City.
Duterte said he had some “misgivings” about the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law but he believed the legal infirmities in the crafting of the bill could be threshed out and fixed.
“I have my misgivings but I would rather say to you now that as a Mindanaoan hungry for peace, I hope and I pray that it would pass Congress,” Duterte said.
“Eventually if there are questions in the Supreme Court, about issues that still need threshing out, such as the creation of a territorial entity, whatever, in the Bangsamoro draft, whatever needs to be corrected, would follow constitutional amendment,” he said.
That is why, Duterte said, he was worried by a statement made by Senate President Franklin Drilon that Congress was running out of time for Charter change.
“Personally, I want the BBL to pass for lasting peace in Mindanao, not only in Davao City,” he said.
He said that some of the questions that might be raised to the Supreme Court involve issues of territory, wealth sharing and the maintenance of a regional police force.
“So you still need to reconcile that, and the mechanism to transcend these objections is to amend the Constitution, but Drilon said there’s no more time for the Cha-Cha,” he added.
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