CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Feb. 26, 2011—The chairperson of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)-Bangsamoro Women’s Committee has urged the MNLF leadership to continue working with the present administration for the good of the Filipino-Muslims’ Agama (Faith), Bangsa (Nation), and Lupah/Inged (Homeland).
“The Bangsamoro Muslims, when they voted for President Benigno Aquino III in the last elections, manifested their hope and faith in his leadership. Let us respect the voice of our people. The Philippine Government has accommodated most of our demands. As the report of the Legal Panel has stated, 33 of the 36 demands of the MNLF has already been met. Let us start on the doable and not delay ourselves with issues where we cannot agree,” said Hadja Bainon Karon during the closing program of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) - MNLF - Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) 4th Tripartite Conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on February 23, 2010. (A copy of her speech was emailed to TIGBALITA).
These three issues that remain unsolved , which are also subject of negotiations of the GPH and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), areautonomy; sharing of revenues between central government and regional
government in strategic minerals; and transitional mechanism.
The other 33 issues were resolved by the joint GPH-MNLF legal panel, headed by MNLF chairman Nur Misuari and Justice Undersecretary Leah Armamento, during the January 15 meeting in which they drafted the amendatory bill for Republic Act 9054, which provides for the expansion of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, to make the law creating the ARMM more reflective of the sentiments of the Moro people.
During that January 15 meeting at the Indonesian Embassy, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita “Ging” Quintos-Deles lauded the joint legal panel for sharing their “effort and expertise” for “a more satisfactory implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement.”
“Almost 22 months to date from the Third Tripartite Meeting, we are glad that the Legal Panel – jointly led by Professor Nur Misuari and Undersecretary of Justice Leah Armamento – has found such common grounds and transformed to legal form the common proposals and common grounds,” she said.
These “common proposals and common grounds” as reflected in the 33 issues resolved by the joint legal panel were presented during to the 4th Tripartite Meeting last week, which threshed out issues that hampered the full implementation of the September 2, 1996 Final Peace Agreement (FPA) the MNLF signed with the GPH.
The 1996 FPA, which was welcomed by millions of suffering Bangsamoro as the long-awaited solution to end the decades-old armed conflict,was hailed as a landmark by the whole world, including the European
Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA).
Because of the FPA, then President Fidel V. Ramos and Misuari were awarded the UNESCO Peace Prize (Felix Houphouet-Boigny).
“The 1996 Final Peace Agreement should have delivered peace to the Bangsamoro Muslims who are now concentrated in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” said Karon.
But because of the failure of implementing the 1996 FPA, the OIC called for a tripartite meeting with the GPH and MNLF to review the FPA. The 56-nation-strong OIC brokered the GPH-MNLF peace talks during the time of President Corazon Aquino until the successful signing of the FPA in 1996 during the Ramos presidency.
“Our people on the ground expected that this review will deliver peace, security, development. It is rightly so since the Revolution fi Sabilillah was for them. It was not for us. It was for our people. It was for the Bangsamoro Muslims” added Karon.
Karon also appealed to the MNLF leaders to unite and make up for their differences and “consider the status and situation of our brothers and sisters in the ground for us to move on in crafting the destiny of our people
particularly the Bangsamoro People.”
“And united, let us deliver peace, security and development to the Bangsamoro Muslim communities who fought and struggled,” she said.
She also urged the MNLF leaders to “consider the suffering of the Bangsamoro Muslims. It is not only us, the leaders, who have sacrificed for our Agama (Faith), Bangsa (Nation), and Lupah/Inged (Homeland). It is the masses of the Bangsamoro Muslims who have fought, bled, and died. It is the masses of the Bangsamoro Muslims whose mothers, sisters, and daughters who have been widowed. It is the masses of the Bangsamoro Muslims who have been orphaned and displaced by the war.”
Karon also urged the Aquino administration to consider the sufferings and situations of the Bangsamoro people in crafting the “Road Map for the building of the Nation of the Bangsamoro People.”
Deles, on the other hand, vowed that the Aquino administration “do(es) not want to turn over another unfinished business to the next administration.”
“There is much work to be done, with due diligence to be applied on all issues. The Philippine Government, under the leadership of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, does not want to sign any agreement or statement that it cannot uphold and implement… The intention of the current Aquino administration is to move this process from dialogue on the table to implementation on the ground, so that we can use the remaining period of our term to ensure that commitments are delivered especially to the communities which have carried the heaviest burden of this conflict. We do not want to turn over another unfinished business to the next administration. It stops with us,” she said in her remarks during the opening of the 4th Tripartite Meeting. (Bong
D. Fabe)
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