Philippine leader Gloria Arroyo talks with Muslim job-seekers on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at the Philippine Trade and Training Center in Pasay City. Arroyo on Wednesday also dissolved the government panel negotiating peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. (Photo by Rey Baniquet / Text by the Mindanao Examiner)
MAGUINDANAO, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / September 3, 2008) – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front vowed to continue its armed struggle after Manila on Wednesday dissolved its peace panel negotiating with the Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group.
The government’s announcement came two weeks after MILF commanders Ameril Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar led hundreds of rebels in separate attacks on the provinces in Mindanao. Dozens of people were brutally killed in the raid.
“If the peace talks with the Philippine government fail, then we have no recourse but to continue our armed struggle,” Mohagher Iqbal, the chief MILF peace negotiator, told the Mindanao Examiner.
President Gloria Arroyo, who opened peace talks with the rebels in 2001, has already scrapped a territorial deal with the MILF after the Supreme Court stopped its formal signing last month in Malaysia because many of its provisions were unconstitutional.
Peace negotiators in July initially signed the memorandum of agreement on the ancestral domain that would have granted some four million Muslims their own homeland in more than 700 villages across Mindanao, whose 21 million populations are mostly Christians and indigenous tribes.
The homeland deal sparked a series of protests from politicians and residents who were opposed to the inclusion of their areas to the agreement that will make up the so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.
Rebel forces launched the attacks after the failed signing of the controversial ancestral domain agreement.
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said the government’s decision to dissolve the peace panel, headed by Rodolfo Garcia, will pave the way for a fresh start to the peace process in the restive region.
Manila repeatedly demanded the MILF to surrender Kato and Macapaar after authorities filed criminal charges against them for the attacks. But the rebel group flatly rejected the demand, saying, it is investigating the duo for their involvement in the deadly attacks.
Fighting erupted in many areas in Lanao del Norte and Maguindanao provinces where security forces mounted a massive operation aimed at capturing the two rogue MILF leaders.
The continuing hostilities, the MILF said, are already threatening the peace talks and that the fighting could spread to other areas in Mindanao if the government will not stop attacking rebel forces in the guise of pursuing Kato and Macapaar.
“Our struggle for self-determination will not falter. All that is happening is Allah’s will and the struggle of the Bangsamoro people for self-determination is also the struggle of the MILF,” Iqbal said.
Arroyo has shifted in the basic premise of the government's peace effort after hundreds of rebels under Ameril Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar led a series of attacks in the provinces in Mindanao that killed dozens of civilians.
Iqbal said the peace talks are now in “purgatory”.
Presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon said the government will longer sign the ancestral domain deal, which the MILF insisted is already a done deal after peace negotiators initially signed the accord in July.
Manila also demanded the rebels to lay down their weapons before peace talks can resume. This was also rejected by the MILF.
Iqbal said Manila should provide official statement to Malaysia and the MILF the scrapping of the territorial deal and the termination of government peace panel or whether Arroyo would still continue the peace talks with the MILF or not.
“Without these official communication, the MILF cannot decide whether to continue the peace with the Arroyo government or not,” he said.
Last year, peace talks were also stalled after Manila reneged on the ancestral domain deal. Malaysia, which is brokering the peace talks, has pulled out its truce observers deployed in Mindanao after blaming the Arroyo government of stalling the seven-year old negotiations.
Manila said previously that it would pursue a proposal by Senator Aquilino Pimentel to put up a federal government and divide the Philippines into eleven states.
Pimentel proposed four federal states in Luzon, three in the Visayas and three more in Mindanao. He said the establishment of a federal system, as embodied under Joint Resolution 10 which he introduced, will not only overhaul the political structure of government, but also bring about a dramatic change in the system of apportioning the wealth of the nation between the central government and the local government units.
"Since the central government will be left with less power, it will need fewer funds. And therefore, its share of the national wealth or resource shall be reduced correspondingly,” he said, adding, the sharing of revenues will be 80 percent for the Federal states and 20 percent for the Central government.
Pimentel said federalization of the country would enhance national cohesion and unity because the proposed 11 component states will enjoy full autonomy.
Arroyo's allies in Congress have earlier proposed to amend the Constitution to change the system of government from presidential to parliamentary or federalism.
But militant groups and political activists have repeatedly accused Arroyo of using the peace talks with the MILF to amend the Constitution and eventually prolong her to stay into power.
Under the presidential form of government, Arroyo is allowed only one six-year term. In the charter change proposal suggested by her political allies who dominate Congress, she can be elected as prime minister should Congress dissolve the Senate and change the system of government to parliamentary and eventually prolong her into power beyond 2010.
Arroyo deposed President Joseph Estrada in a people power revolution in 2001, but corruption scandals in her government and allegations of poll fraud in 2004 has made her extremely unpopular. (Mindanao Examiner)
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