P-Noy, MILF chief hold talks in Tokyo

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino and his delegation slipped out of the country on Thursday to hold an unannounced meeting with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chair Al Haj Murad Ibrahim in Tokyo, Japan where they agreed to speed up negotiations for ending the decades-long Muslim separatist struggle in Mindanao.

Government peace panel chairman Marvic Leonen declined to reveal details of the meeting held in a hotel near the Narita airport, but assured the public that no secret deal was made and that there would be no repeat of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) whose botched signing after its being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court triggered a killing rampage by rogue elements of the MILF in 2008.

Palace officials said the Japan meeting was the first time a Philippine president had held face-to-face talks with the MILF chairman in 14 years of on-and-off peace negotiations.

“Both agreed to fast-track the negotiations,” a government statement said.

“Both agreed that the implementation of any agreement should happen within the current administration,” it added, referring to Aquino’s six-year term that ends in mid-2016.

Leonen said the President’s instructions to the government peace panel were very clear: that they should be pragmatic and never promise anything not feasible or attainable.

The MILF, according to Leonen, described the President’s move as a “grand gesture” of sincerity.

Leonen said they had to keep the meeting secret for security reasons and to avoid media frenzy which could affect the atmosphere of the meeting.

“We have learned from the MOA-AD,” Leonen said, adding the government was reconnecting with the MILF on a very “sincere plane.”

Leonen said Murad told the President of his confidence in his administration.

“You are unlike the previous administration, we know that you are sincere,” Leonen quoting Murad as saying.

“I was counting it (expression of confidence), it was repeated three times by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” Leonen said.

He said the President and Murad discussed “frames as to how to fast-track the process, a commitment and a delivery of the message that we want implementation and we are sincere with the just, comprehensive lasting agreement.”

Leonen said “there are other things that they discussed.”

Leonen stressed that Aquino assured the MILF leaders of a “feasible, practical, viable politically and economically” peace agreement.

“The President said I can only commit, in many occasions, that which I can do and I will do whatever it is that I can commit. I think to the MILF that smacked of a lot of sincerity on the part of the President,” Leonen said.

Separatists no more

Leonen said the MILF should no longer be called a separatist or secessionist movement because it was no longer seeking an independent state but a sub-state where they would remain Filipino citizens.

At the same time, Leonen said the meeting did not diminish the President’s stature or give the MILF belligerency status.

“Why not (meet with MILF) if the President is very serious about this? If the administration for the past 14 years did not even meet with them and they said that they were serious in peace, then you see now, the President himself really wanting for himself to actually talk to the head of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,” Leonen said.

“The President meets with all sorts of civil groups. The President meets with all sorts of Filipinos and here, if you are serious about peace, why is that you cannot meet with the chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front?”

Leonen said the President and Murad met for about two hours at the Ana Crown Hotel near Narita airport at 8:30 p.m., or two and a half hours after Aquino and his delegation arrived on a chartered flight from Manila at 6 p.m.

“The President will meet with any Filipino anywhere in the world, in the planet, especially if he is serious enough to talk about an agenda which is important for the country,” Leonen said.

“So this is a meeting between Filipinos. It was held in Japan. The President is willing to meet anywhere including any place. We offered to meet in Mindanao, we even offered to meet very close to where the heart of the MILF is. However, they requested that the meeting take place in any one of the International Contact Group (ICG) countries, and of course, one of them, the closest is Japan, and therefore we thought the place was not an issue,” Leonen said.

Other ICG member-countries are Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Kingdom.

“It’s a fruitful meeting. The government is serious in looking for (a) genuine solution to the problem,” an AFP report quoted MILF vice-chairman Ghazali Jaafar as saying in a phone interview. Jaafar did not travel with Murad.

“The peace process is now on the straight, sa matuwid na daan,” he said later in a statement.

“It was the first time in the history of Bangsamoro struggle that the President and MILF chief meet in a foreign land,” he said.

“We presented to the President our position on the GPH-MILF peace process,” Jaafar said.

“We also presented our talking points to President Aquino and his party while his group also presented the government’s talking points,” he added.

“All what was discussed was about the GPH-MILF peace process, how to find solutions and who to develop Muslim Mindanao,” Jaafar said.

Asked to specify MILF’s talking points, Jaafar said “we want a nation but not separate from the republic. It must have power to govern but not about the power of the Philippine government.”

“We told the President that we want Bangsamoro state not like the ARMM which is inutile,” he added.

A member of the MILF peace panel who declined to be identified described the meeting as a “getting-to-know-you session.”

“This (peace) is something we can hope for, but there’s still a lot of legwork to do in the coming months,” he said.

Trip unofficial

The President’s delegation, aside from Leonen, included Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, National Security Adviser Cesar Garcia, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, and presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda.

The group left Japan at 10 a.m. yesterday and arrived at around 3 p.m. in Manila.

The Palace said the presidential trip to Japan was unofficial but the Japanese government was gracious enough to shoulder some of the expenses in hosting the meeting.

“The meeting was cordial but consisted of a frank and candid exchange of their views about the frames of the continuing peace talks and some possible approaches that the parties can take to bring about a peaceful settlement,” Leonen said.

Leonen said it was the President himself who sought the meeting prior to his administration’s submission of its own agenda for the talks.

Leonen disclosed the meeting was set during a meeting on June 27.

“It was during that meeting that the panels discussed the possibility for the meeting between the President and the chair of the MILF. The government panel shared its proposed details and agenda,” Leonen said.

“The MILF panel, on the other hand, communicated the view of their central committee that the offer for a meeting was a ‘grand gesture’ on the part of government. They also mentioned that it was an ‘honor’ that this historical meeting was going to take place,” Leonen said.

“Only the President, Murad and their note takers were in the meeting room. The meeting was informal,” he added.

“The meeting helps the formal negotiations between the panels of both sides. It will facilitate its progress,” Leonen said, adding he was one of the note takers.

Murad was accompanied to the meeting place by some members of the MILF’s central committee and some commanders.

“We thank Japan for providing the facilities consistent with their longstanding commitment to peace, as well as the Malaysian facilitator for assisting with arrangements between the two parties for this historic meeting,” Leonen said.

Japan was chosen as venue for the meeting since it is part of the International Contact Group on Mindanao that has been supporting the country’s peace talks with the Muslim rebels. 

Lacierda, for his part, said, “The President saw the opportunity. He felt that this was the best time to meet with chairman Murad. And I think the discussions were very fruitful. It was a candid exchange.”

The official negotiating panels of the two sides are now expected to head back to Malaysia to continue the talks on Aug. 15.

The MILF, said to be 12,000-strong, is expected to drop its demand for a separate state in Mindanao at the resumption of the peace talks.  

The rebellion has killed over 150,000 people and stunted economic growth in the mineral rich but impoverished regions in Mindanao.

Aquino’s predecessor Gloria Arroyo, who is now a Pampanga congresswoman, failed to sign a peace deal with the MILF during the nearly 10 years she was in power.

Rogue elements of the MILF went on a killing rampage in 2008 following the Supreme Court’s rejection of the MOA-AD between the Arroyo administration and the MILF.

The aborted deal would have given the MILF control over vast tracts of land, even in Christian dominated areas.

More than 750,000 people were displaced at the height of the fighting, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

About 400 civilians and fighters from both sides were also killed.

After Aquino came to power last year, peace talks resumed between the two sides in Malaysia, with the last round held in June.

The MILF broke away in 1978 from the Moro National Liberation Front, which launched a bloody separatist uprising in Mindanao in 1971 before signing a peace treaty with the government in 1996.

Aquino may be following the footsteps of his late mother, former President Corazon Aquino, who met MNLF chairman Nur Misuari in 1987 soon after his return from exile in Saudi Arabia. With John Unson