MNLF, gov't looking for solutions to groups' domain issues

COTABATO CITY - Leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) are now cooperating on how to address the nagging concerns besetting the former rebel group’s domains in Mindanao, officials said Saturday.

The joint ARMM-MNLF peace and development efforts are supported by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, according to Marlon Dedumo, supervising chief of OPAPP’s press bureau for Mindanao.

Senior officials of the MNLF, which signed a final peace pact with government on September 2, 1996, held Thursday an initial brainstorming session with ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman in Cotabato City, where they discussed strategies on how to improve living conditions in former rebel enclaves, now protected by the 17-year accord.

ARMM’s executive secretary, Laisa Alamia, said the meeting was an offshoot of last week’s Senior MNLF Leaders’ Forum in Zamboanga City, which was jointly organized by OPAPP and Hataman’s office.

The forum led to the signing by participating MNLF officials of a manifesto reaffirming their continuing recognition of their 1996 peace accord with government.

The signatories also stated in the document their desire for a peaceful exhaustion of all possible solutions to misunderstandings on the implementation of the peace agreement, through its on-going tripartite review involving combined officials from Malacañang and ARMM, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The three-way evaluation process started in 2007 and had, so far, resulted to the  acknowledgement of “42 consensus points” on how to improve the truce, based on five parameters – education, regional security, political representation of the Moro communities, natural resources, and Sharia justice system.

`Open to MNLF’

Senior MNLF officials who attended last week’s forum in Zamboanga City, among them Abu Amri Taddik, former Sulu Gov. Yusoph Jikiri, and Abebakrin Lucman, an erstwhile ARMM regional information director, also stated in their manifesto their continuing support to the tripartite review of the peace agreement.

Hataman, who was elected ARMM governor last May 13, after serving as caretaker of the autonomous region from December 22, 2011 until his election as the area’s duly-mandated chief executive, said he will task local government units to help in the implementation of socio-economic projects for former MNLF combatants.

“The doors to the seat of the ARMM’s executive department in Cotabato City are wide open to all members of the MNLF,” Hataman said via text message Saturday.  

Alamia said the ARMM government is keen on pushing socio-economic growth forward in MNLF enclaves in the autonomous region through OPAPP’s Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PAMANA) program, which has social welfare, health and livelihood components.

Project funds available

Alamia said they want to fuse together the efforts of all agencies and support offices involved in projects meant to address underdevelopment in many MNLF communities.

The ARMM government has been helping OPAPP implement the PAMANA’s Camp to Communities, or “C2C” project, whose funding for 2014 had been integrated into the autonomous region’s budget for the same fiscal year.

“The `C2C project’ will help transform these once conflict-stricken areas into peaceful and productive communities,” Alamia said.

The adverse impacts of the 30-year bloody conflict between the MNLF and the government, which started in the early 1970s, are blamed for much of the socio-economic problems condoning poverty in many parts of ARMM.

“These are what the regional government and Malacañang are now trying to address through bilateral interventions,” Alamia said.

The national government, Alamia said, has earmarked P1.4 billion, up to P2.6-billion, for PAMANA projects for fiscal years 2013 and 2014.