IN many parts of southern Mindanao, jeeps, trucks
and buses already lined up the highways even before the break of day Thursday,
March 27.
Green flags and banners tenderly swayed in the
early morning breeze as the vehicles rolled and headed towards major city and
urban centers in Mindanao.
While the passengers of the vehicles converge in
the cities down south of the Philippines, their passengers were all ears and
eyes in Manila, the national capital.
Thursday marked the end of 17 years of peace
negotiations as President Benigno Aquino III and Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) chair Murad ‘Al Haj’ Ibrahim witnessed the signing of a historic document
that ended 45 years of armed Moro resistance in Mindanao.
Yes, the MILF is finally turning their guns off and
in silence after decades of bloody and acrimonious wars.
Signing the peace pact on behalf of the Philippine
gov’t were former UP Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and her counterpart
Mohaqer Iqbal, MILF peace panel chair. Members of the negotiating panels from
both sides also signed the peace accord.
On hand to also witness the peace deal was
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Malaysia acted as the third party
mediator and host country during series of talks – more than 40 sessions in
total – between the Philippine government and the MILF.
The MILF is keeping their guns “out of commission”
for good in a calibrated manner in exchange for 4 major annexes in the peace
agreement that will give them control over wider territory, governance, power
sharing and resources.
It is a negotiated political settlement the
government hopes will stop the country from further bloodbath and hopefully
fulfill the promise that is Mindanao.
It is the third of its kind to be signed between
the gov’t and Moro rebel forces.
In 1976, former strongman President Ferdinand
Marcos sent his wife Imelda Marcos to Tripoli, Libya to oversee the signing of
the Tripoli Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front headed by
Chairman Nur Misuari.
Then again, the MNLF, still under Misuari, signed
the 1996 Jakarta Final Peace Accord after going back to war for the failed
Tripoli Agreement.
The MILF, a breakaway faction of the MNLF, won’t
enter into peace negotiations until the following year, in 1997 when a
ceasefire also took effect.
The negotiations outlived its founding chair
Salamat Hashim who died in July 2003, 6 months after writing a letter to US
President George Bush Jr (in January the same year) seeking US intervention to
end the internecine war in Mindanao.
In January 2008, former US Ambassador tot the
Philippines made an unprecedented visit to the MILF’s Camp Abubakar even as the
peace process was ongoing,
These drawn out peace process has outlived at least
3 major wars in a span of 14 years culminating into the bloody MILF attacks
after the failed signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain in
2008.
Deposed former President Joseph Estrada also
declared all-out war against the MILF in 2000 that lead to the seizure of the
main camp of the Moro rebel – Camp Abubakar. This was followed yet
by another attempt of the Arroyo administration to crush the resiliency of the
MILF in 2003-2004.
The peace process went on and off until the Aquino
administration came into power in 2010.
In August 2011, President Aquino secretly met with
Murad in an airport in Japan to jumpstart the resumption of the peace talks.
This culminated into the signing of comprehensive
peace accord in Malacanang Thursday.
Presidential Adviser to the Peace Process Teresita
Deles said there will be “no more war” in speech before the signing of the
documents.
Murad described the historic singing as the Moro
people’s “crowning glory of our struggle.”
Aquino warned critics and doubters that he will not
allow the peace agreement to be again disrupted by “spoilers.”
With the signing of the peace agreement, Aquino
said the MILF will cease to exist as an armed group in 2016.
“The MILF will have shed its identity as a military force, and
transformed itself into a political entity, casting its stake in democracy by
vying for seats in the Bangsamoro elections,” he said during the signing
ceremony at the presidential palace.
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