Philippines offers autonomy to Moro rebels

KUALA LUMPUR—The Philippines on Monday offered Moro rebels waging a decades-long insurgency the prospect of autonomy, but warned that they must first lay down their arms and a peace pact was likely years away.

The offer was contained in the government’s proposal for peace with the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) at the start of three days of talks in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

“This proposal presents the possibility of a more empowered, more workable and thus, more genuine autonomy of a Bangsamoro (Filipino Muslim) region,” the government said in a statement summarizing its offer.

The government did not make public all the details, but hinted the area could expand and improve the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which groups five predominantly Muslim provinces in Mindanao.

The ARMM was created in the 1980s to accommodate the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), then the country’s largest Moro rebel group from which the MILF splintered in 1978.

The MNLF signed a peace deal with Manila in 1996, and its leader was made the head of the ARMM, but the government statement described it as a “failed experiment.”

The proposal also includes “a system of cooperation” by which the government and the MILF could share revenue from natural resources exploited from the region.

However, for any final peace deal to take place, the government demanded that the MILF disarm and allow its fighters to be rehabilitated into society.

And while describing its proposal as “politically comprehensive,” it indicated the most sensitive issues would not be addressed immediately.

“The proposal works with what is available and doable within the next few years. It does not start with contentious and divisive issues whose resolution may not be realizable as yet,” the statement said.

In Manila, a news release of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp) said the government proposal consists of 11 characteristics, principal of which is that it “recognizes the identity of the Bangsamoro and its history.”

The government proposal “presents a practical and bold approach to create the conditions for meaningful and effective governance” that ensure delivery of needed social services and create the conditions for sustainable economic development, the Opapp said.

The Opapp added that the Aquino administration “is poised to use its massive resources and its theme of good governance for this undertaking.”

At the heart of the government proposal is reforming the ARMM which was created in 1989 through Republic Act No. 6734, an enabling law of a constitutional provision on providing Moro autonomy.

“The ARMM may have been a failed experiment in the past; but the current proposal is based on a more balanced understanding of whether its past failure was due to its structure and the systems that it spawned or the quality of the past national or regional leadership,” the Opapp said.

The proposal is also looking at “reforming the relationship between national and regional government.”

Monday’s proposal was the first by the government since the Supreme Court in 2008 outlawed another proposed autonomy deal that would have given the MILF control over 700 towns and villages in the south, including some Christian areas.

In retaliation, two senior MILF rebels launched attacks across Mindanao that left about 400 dead and displaced 750,000.

About 150,000 people have died in the conflict, which began in the 1970s.

At an earlier round of peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, the MILF outlined its demands, including the creation of a “substate” and the larger share of profits from exploiting the region’s resources.

The Aquino administration has been working for ARMM reforms following the shelving of its earlier scheduled August regional polls.

A set of appointed regional officials are due to assume in October for a 21-month period. This interim period is expected to be a “regime of reforms” with the massive participation of civil society organizations.

MILF spokespersons were not immediately available to give their reactions to the government’s latest proposal. Reports from AFP and Ryan D. Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao