COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 23, 2008) – The Philippines on Tuesday named three more to the government team that would negotiate peace with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Secretary Hermogenes Esperon, who serves as the government peace adviser, said the new members are Adelbert Antonino, the mayor of General Santos City; Ronald Adamat, a former lawmaker; and Nasser Pangandaman, the current Agrarian Reform Secretary.
President Gloria Arroyo earlier appointed Rafael Seguis, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary, as head of the government peace panel. Seguis said he would do his best to advance the cause of peace in Mindanao.
Peace talks collapsed in August after the failed signing of the Muslim ancestral domain agreement. The Supreme Court said the deal was unconstitutional.
The aborted signing also triggered a series of deadly rebel attacks in the southern Philippines. Because of the attacks, President Arroyo disbanded the government peace panel negotiating with rebels and demanded the MILF to surrender those responsible in the attacks - Abdullah Macapaar, Sulayman Pangalian and Ameril Kato.
Arroyo previously said the government would only return to the peace talks if the MILF surrenders the trio, but the rebel group rejected the demand. Manila has put up a P10 million bounties each for the capture of Macapaar, Kato and Pangalian.
For its part, the MILF said it would resume peace talks only if President Arroyo honors the territorial land deal that negotiators had initially signed in July in Malaysia.
“We are firm with our stand, we will resume peace talks only if President Arroyo honors the Muslim ancestral domain agreement,” Mohagher Iqbal, the chief MILF peace negotiator, told the Mindanao Examiner by phone from his farm in Mindanao.
Iqbal said the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain was already initialed by the MILF and the government peace panel headed by then Rodolfo Garcia.
The territorial land deal also sparked a massive protest from Christian politicians and residents in areas covered by the agreement, which would have granted a separate homeland for more than four million Muslims across over 700 villages in Mindanao. (Mindanao Examiner)
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