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)

Shooting victim dies but also kills 2 assailants

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/12 January)—Before he died from bullets they pumped into his body, a victim of a shooting incident here Saturday managed to go after the two suspects and killed them in return, a police official said.

Insp. Reynaldo Rojo, deputy commander of city police station 3, said the victim, Moner Buday, 33, rammed the vehicle he was driving into the motorcycle of the fleeing suspects.



The pick-up vehicle rolled over the motorcycle and killed the suspects, the officer said.

Buday, 33, a worker of a quarry business, was driving at around 1 p.m. along San Pedro Extension in Barangay Lagao when the motorcycle-riding suspects shot him several times with a .45 caliber pistol, police said.

Badly wounded, the victim still managed to drive his vehicle and chase the suspects, catching up with them at Leon Lido Street.

There, he rammed his pick-up into the motorcycle of the suspects, who were crushed to death as the vehicle ran over them, police said.

Buday’s vehicle then careened and smashed an eatery where several persons were having their lunch.

Three of the eatery’s customers were wounded and were immediately brought to the hospital for treatment.

Rojo said that investigators were still trying to establish the identities of the suspects as well as the motive for the attack.

It was learned, however, that one of them was a certain Jimmy Bagaforo, reportedly fresh out of prison.

Police recovered the handgun used in the attack.

Power Crisis in Mindanao--- " Deprived Host"

Deprived Host

"Deprived Host"

Kidapawan City in North Cotabato Province is one of the worst hit by Mindanao’s power crisis with at least eight hours to 10 hours of daily power curtailment in the first quarter of the year.

Small and medium traders in North Cotabato expressed dismay over the eight-hour daily rotating brownout like the case of auto repair shop operator Gregorio Tuburan.

Tuburan said, almost half of the day is wasted, as they are dependent on electricity. The situation has resulted in the decrease of his income due to low productivity.

During cut-off times, business establishments, government offices and other commercial buildings use generators.

At nights supermarkets also rely on generators. Vendors pool their money to purchase mini-generators to continue trade inside a dark supermarket.

But those who cannot afford to buy generators have survived only with the use of battery trucks, chargeable LED lights, and candles and even improvised oil lamps.

Feeling the suffering of the people from the power curtailments, Kidapawan City officials have demanded the Department of Energy to appropriate energy share from the total generated energy.

Energy Act of 1992 states that energy-generating facilities in the country like the Mt. Apo geothermal plants is obliged to allocate 25 percent of the total daily output to the host town and provinces.

But this demand has not been granted yet, resulting in the filing of civil suit  against energy officials and power operators.

During the height of power shortage, Cotelco has only 15.4 megawatts of daily load dispatch from the Napocor.

Cotelco needs a regular 32 to 36 megawatts power load to continue a stable operation.

At the moment, Mindanao Grid has a shortage of 400 megawatts of power supply.

But several officials and progressive groups have claimed there is no actual power crisis in Mindanao.

According to them, power cartel sectors that privatized the industry are behind the “artificial” power crisis to compel local cooperatives in buying power from much more expensive power barges.

On the second week of May, Cotelco has managed to buy an additional 8 megawatts of power supply from the private power barge supplier, Therma Marine Incorporated (TMI) to augment power shortages in North Cotabato.

Cotelco now can maintain 28 up to 30 megawatts of power load which is now expecting fewer hours of brownouts.

Purchase of power load from diesel fuel-powered power barges like TMI is three times of the price from that coming from hydro-power generated energy, this would mean an increase in charges to power consumers.

End.

MMJ 192 Maguindanao: Security, Politicians and People (a video teaser)