Aquino on peace talks with MILF: Let’s not be caught up in jargons

BAIS, Negros Oriental—President Aquino on Wednesday expressed optimism that the government would be able to firm up a peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“As I told you from the very beginning, the devil is in the details,” the President told reporters when asked about prospects for the talks after the MILF declared on Tuesday that it was sticking to its proposal to seek a “substate.”

He said he did not think the MILF was ending the peace negotiations.

“Maybe our enhanced autonomy (proposal) and their substate proposal were only different in name but similar in details,” said Aquino, who was in Bais to inaugurate a P265-million city public market complex.

“Let us not be caught up in jargon,” he said.

The President was referring to the government’s offer for an “enhanced” Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The MILF is seeking the formation of a substate, or a “region outside the ARMM that can stand alone without Malacañang’s administration and funding support.”

Aquino said he was convinced when he talked to MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim and MILF spokesman Mohagher Iqbal in Tokyo last month that “they wanted peace.”

“Both of us want peace. I think and I cannot say that it will happen in the immediate time, but we are advancing towards achieving peace in Mindanao,” the President said.

Talks resumed in Malaysia late last month after Aquino’s secret meeting with MILF leaders in Japan. The talks ended a day early after the MILF peace panel rejected the government’s counter proposal.

Malaysian facilitator

A Malaysian facilitator, Ghafar Mohamed, will visit the rebel headquarters at Camp Darapanan in Maguindanao this week to broker a resumption of the talks, according to Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs.

“He will visit us. He will meet with the (MILF) central committee. We will listen to him first,” Jaafar said.

Jaafar said the MILF was optimistic that the presence of the third-party facilitator would break the deadlock, adding that the resumption of the talks depended on whether the government would take up the MILF’s proposal.

“The government must listen to us. And since we presented to them a proposed solution as contained in the comprehensive compact agreement, they should first appreciate our proposal, discuss our proposal,” Jaafar said.

“Otherwise these talks are going nowhere,” he added.—With a report from Dona Z. Pazzibugan in Manila