Aquino peace advisers spurned Nur–lawmaker

POLICEMEN take a break from the fighting in Zamboanga City to watch their favorite noontime show on TV. Special police forces have been sent to the city to flush out members of the Nur Misuari faction of the Moro National Liberation Front. KARLOS MANLUPIG/INQUIRER MINDANAO

DAVAO CITY—Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate has proposed that Congress trim down the 2014 budget of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (Opapp) even as he suggested that there should be scrutiny on how the Malacañang-attached agency performed in recent years.

Zarate said in a statement that the Opapp “failed to address issues in the peace negotiations between the government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which resulted in the standoff between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the MNLF in Zamboanga City.”

Earlier, Zamboanga City Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar also blamed the Opapp for the crisis that has gripped her city since Sept. 9.

“Because of the incompetence of the Opapp to reach out to them (MNLF) and two leaders with their ideologies … the entire people are suffering. We are all victims here. Despite numerous appeals to the Opapp to go to Sulu and address the problem of Nur Misuari, the Opapp did not listen,” Salazar said.

“The Opapp’s tough stand against the MNLF in the peace negotiation and its disregard of professor Nur Misuari has resulted in the bungling of the peace talks with the MNLF,” Zarate said.

The Opapp has asked the Congress to approve its proposed P351.5-million budget, on top of the P7-billion fund for its project,  Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana), a support project for the government’s peace and development program for former rebels.

Zarate said  President Aquino’s inclusive or comprehensive peace policy was now in question after “the Opapp revealed that it was the President’s marching orders to terminate peace negotiations with other groups.”

He said this smacked of patronage politics and counterinsurgency measures, which prompted him to suggest that the Pamana lump-sum fund scattered in 10 agencies, including the Department of the Interior and Local Government, be scrapped as well.

“[This showed] the Opapp’s selective stand against other peace panels of the negotiations, terminating the MNLF peace talks and scuttling the National Democratic Front  peace negotiations while rushing and promising more funds to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” he said.

Misuari had accused the government of unilaterally terminating the tripartite review of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement when he recently made a declaration of independence.

“The peace policy of President Aquino should not be divisive and exclusive. It should not leave out a legitimate group just to appease another group. This is no way of talking peace in Mindanao,” Zarate said.

Opapp chief Teresita Quinto-Deles has said the government has not withdrawn from its commitments in the 1996 peace agreement and is finding ways to address the issues that Misuari has raised.

In fact, Deles said a tripartite meeting with the MNLF and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation was to be held in Indonesia on Sept. 16 but it was the MNLF that asked for postponement.

The MNLF is also a beneficiary of the Pamana program, according to Laisa Alamia, executive secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Allan Nawal, Inquirer Mindanao