Oil exploration threatens peace talks

Davao City, Philippines—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) warned over the weekend that the peace process could be in jeopardy due to the government’s act of allowing foreign companies to conduct off-shore and on-shore oil exploration in areas it has defined as part of the Bangsamoro ancestral domain.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief, in a statement said the issue could “consequently preempt the intent of the parties to the negotiations to frame a comprehensive compact formula that would allow the Bangsamoro people to exercise governance over a self-sustaining natural resource-based territorial homeland in their remaining ancestral domain.”

“In light of the recent activities of foreign companies to explore and exploit the natural resources in the Bangsamoro ancestral homeland, the Central Committee of the MILF serves notice that it vehemently opposes such economic activities,” Jaafar said in an e-mailed statement.

The Department of Energy’s 4th Philippine Energy Contracting Round (PECR 4) has identified two areas in Cotabato and Sulu in its 10-million-hectare target for oil exploration. The investment was projected to cost around $7.5 billion.

“The MILF urges the GPH (Government of the Philippines) to temporarily suspend the operations of foreign companies set to conduct off-shore and on-shore oil exploration in areas covered by the Bangsamoro ancestral domain,” Jafaar said.

It also urged private companies to distance themselves from investments that would supposedly aggravate the injustice perpetrated on the Moro people.

“The MILF also serves notice on all private companies not to allow themselves to be accomplices in further depriving the Bangsamoro of their remaining ancestral domain. We have been minoritized in our own homeland of Mindanao due to massive land-grabbing and resettlement programs. And now the little resources that are remaining to us, some of those in the private sector and their partners in government still greedily covet,” Jafaar said.

Jafaar said the natural resources of the so-called Bangsamoro homeland rightfully belong to the Bangsamoro people.

The ancestral domain being claimed by the MILF is considered to be the central issue in the ongoing peace negotiations.