MILF: P5 M from government intact

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—The P5 million  that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front received from the national government remains intact and will be spent only for the purpose it has been programmed for —the  Moro youths to become good leaders, MILF officials said Thursday.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief, said everybody was welcome to scrutinize the fund as the MILF had nothing to hide.

“It was not spent on weapons and ammunition as some reports have suggested,” he said.

Jaafar said the MILF has funds for weapons and ammunition and never contemplated using the P5 million that government negotiators handed rebel leaders in Kuala Lumpur recently.

“This disinformation campaign is obviously maliciously fabricated and ill-motivated,” Jun Manatwil, head of the secretariat of the MILF’s peace panel, said in a separate statement.

Mantawil also clarified that the money was simply released by the Aquino administration but had been actually pledged by the Arroyo government to support the establishment of the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute (BLMI), he said.

“This fund commitment was not fulfilled by the previous administration, that’s why the present administration gave it,” Mantawil said.

He said the amount was intact and cannot be disbursed for lack of accounting procedures to govern it.

But he said that while the disbursement procedure for the fund was still being finalized, the BLMI building has begun to rise in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.

“It is being funded by the Embassy of Japan under its Grant Assistance for Human Security Grassroots Project,” Mantawil said.