By any name, ‘IQ’ has traveled long road to peace for 40 years

Commitment matters

“What matters is not so much the name but the commitment of the parties to honor the agreements,” a high-ranking MILF member said when asked about the issue of Iqbal’s true identity.

During the resumption of the House investigation of the Mamasapano massacre on Wednesday, Ferrer said it was clear to them that Iqbal represented the MILF, which in turn, will be bound by the terms of the agreements.

In the same hearing, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said that legally, the CAB is not rendered invalid even if the MILF official who signed was using a nom de guerre.

Several netizens have criticized legislators for making a big fuss about the issue. In her blog, journalist Raissa Robles pointed to the case of Manila Mayor and deposed President Joseph Estrada whose real name is Jose Marcelo Ejercito, and his son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada who is Jose Pimentel Ejercito Jr. in real life.

The name Joseph Estrada was synonymous with the title president of the Philippines from June 30, 1998, until his ouster on Jan. 20, 2001.

It is the same name that referred to the person accused of high crimes, impeached by the House of Representatives in 2000 and convicted of plunder by the Sandiganbayan in 2007.

The peace transition that the CAB set into motion swept Iqbal into important roles in bodies and mechanisms that will help to define the postconflict landscape in Mindanao.

He heads the 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission which drafted the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law. The body was created by President Aquino in December 2012.

Iqbal chairs the advisory committee of the Facility for Advisory Support for Transition Capacities program which is a joint undertaking of the United Nations and the World Bank. The program makes available to the government and the MILF the necessary expertise in rolling out measures related to the transition process.

Iqbal also chairs the oversight bodies of the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute (BLMI) and the Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA).

The BLMI is set up to train future leaders and managers who will oversee development initiatives in a future Bangsamoro region, while the BDA is the MILF’s development arm that rolls out projects to rehabilitate war-torn communities.

With the help of the World Bank, the BDA has formulated the Bangsamoro Development Plan that spells out a strategic direction for the delivery and upgrading of basic services in Bangsamoro communities during and beyond the period of transition.

Intellectual influences

The man known as Iqbal comes from Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao province, a town to the south of Cotabato City. He went to Manuel L. Quezon University where he finished bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science.

Upon his return to Mindanao in August 1972, Iqbal went straight to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the main Muslim insurgency. When the MNLF split up in 1977, he joined the faction of then MNLF vice chair Salamat Hashim who formed the so-called MNLF New Leadership that would be formalized into the MILF in 1984.

According to Maguindanao lawmaker Michael Mastura, as a young revolutionary, Iqbal admired the works of Muslim thinkers Muhammad Iqbal and Abul Ala Maududi.

Muhammad Iqbal was a philosopher, poet and politician in British India who worked for the creation of a Muslim state in the northwest part of the subcontinent in the 1930s. Maududi was an early 20th century journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher in British India and later in Pakistan.

The writings of the two men shaped Iqbal’s ideological outlook, said Mastura, who also served on the MILF peace panel.