2nd FAB forum in Maguindanao

                                         2nd FAB forum draws rare mass backing

 The 2^nd FAB forum, jointly hosted here on Jan. 9-10 by Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and the province’s municipal mayors’ league, was graced Prof. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, chair of the government peace panel and Jun Mantawil, head of the MILF panel secretariat.

Ferrer, who addressed thousands of forum participants, cited the host officials for embarking on the activity, which she said would boost to the on-going GPH-MILF peace talks.

“Let’s continue helping one other in supporting the peace process. The quest for lasting peace is everybody’s concern…Political colors should be set aside,” Ferrer told participants in Pilipino amid the attendance of politicians seeking election under different parties this year.

Public figures, including even those outside the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and opposed to the botched 2008 deal on ancestral domain, have crossed political party lines and showed full backing of the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB) through the just-concluded regional consultation hosted here by the provincial government.

Leaders and delegates from ARMM areas were ostensibly delighted by the attendance of North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza and her political rival former Vice Governor Manny Piñol, who initiated petitions that led to Supreme Court’s junking four years ago of the state’s memorandum on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Piñol, who is facing Taliño-Mendoza in this year’s gubernatorial race for the second time, said he threw his support to the Aquino government’s FAB with the MILF because it has undergone mass consultations, contrary to the forging of the 2008 MOA-AD that was allegedly kept under wrap.

The event also drew the attendance of South Cotabato Rep. Daisy Avance Fuentes and Lualhati Antonino, chair of the Mindanao Development Authority, who were all critical of Malacañang’s peace overtures with Moro factions during the time of Presidents Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The FAB, forged on October 15, 2012 in Malacañang by the government and MILF leaderships, seeks to establish a new autonomous political entity called Bangsamoro to replace ARMM and absorb six towns in Lanao del Norte and 39 villages in five North Cotabato towns that voted for autonomy in a 2002 plebiscite.

In a press briefing, Ferrer said the Transition Commission (TransCom) that would draft the basic law for the Bangsamoro region will be filled up “this month” 15 members, eight from the MILF and seven from the government side.    

Ferrer was also optimistic that the FAB four annexes being tackled in continuing GHP-MILF talks would be completed by March this year.

The annexes include the operational modalities of the Transition Authority that would rule the Bangsamoro after the conduct of a plebiscite that would deem ARMM abolished and warrant the election of its regular officials in 2016.

The three other annexes concern the wealth-sharing, power-sharing and normalization process that would include the decommissioning of MILF combat forces.

Forum delegates were also amazed of the “show of unity in attendance” of ARMM incumbent leaders including caretaker-Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman and Provincial Governors Sakur Tan of Sulu, Mamintal Alonto-Adiong Jr. of Lanao del Sur, Jum Akbar of Bailan, Sadikul Sahali of Tawi-Tawi , and horum host Mangudadatu of this province.

It was also graced by top military brasses in the south led by Lt. Gen. Jorge Segovia, chief of the Eastern Mindanao Command, and Maj. Gen. Caesar Ronnie Ordoyo, commander of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, alongside high ranking police officials.

In a separate press conference here, Governors Mangudadatu, Tan, Sahali, Adiong and Akbar took turns in committing their “unwavering support” to the FAB as exemplified in the conduct of the 1^st forum in Sulu, the just-concluded second episode here, and the next similar events in Basilan, Lanao del Sur and Tawi-Tawi.   

The five Muslim governors credited the current government and MILF leaderships for exerting unprecedented efforts in forging the FAB, which they described as “full of potentials” to finally end the decades-old Moro rebellion.

Also present in the forum here were members of the ARMM’s 27-seat Regional Assembly led by Speaker Rasol Mitmug Jr. that had earlier crafted a litany of suggestions to guide the MILF and government peace panels in striking a “final Compact Peace Agreement.”

Meanwhile, in his speech at the forum, Hataman renewed his vow to step down and give way to the full implementation of whatever the government and the MILF may agree upon soon. He is running for ARMM governor in the coming synchronized elections.

Highlighting the forum was an earlier peace caravan involving more than 1,000 of vehicles that toured this province and several towns in North Cotabato.

Presided by Gov. Mangudadatu, the forum’s technical working group adopted seven resolutions recommending to the government and MILF panels proposals to hasten the peace process.

One of the resolutions called on the two panels to recognize the need to involve non-Muslims and the lumad sectors, or the so-called non-Moro indigenous people, in the setting up of the proposed Bangsamoro region.

Another resolution asked the GPH and MILF panels and the ARMM five provincial governors to convene and discuss the viability of involving local government units in the TransCom and the Bangsamoro Transition Authority.

Also approved by Mangudadatu was a resolution tasking the five ARMM provincial governors and their mayors to launch information drives, with the help of the media, to enhance public awareness about the FAB, and urging the TransCom to conduct extensive dialogues about the Mindanao peace process.

The current GPH-MILF peace talks MILF started January 7, 1997, but collapsed in 2000, in 2003 and in 2008 due to peace and security issues that hounded many flashpoint areas in Mindanao supposedly covered by the 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities.

The thorny and contentious peace talks gained headway in recent years with the participation of foreign donors and international peace advocacy organizations, including the peacekeeping contingent International Monitoring Team from Malaysia, Libya, Brunei and Indonesia, and non-uniformed conflict resolution experts from Norway, Japan and the European Union. (Text by Ali G. Macabalang)