Gov't hopeful on peace talks with MILF

BEIJING — President Aquino remains hopeful that the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will find a “common ground” that would lead to a final peace agreement.

Aquino also told reporters late Wednesday at the China World Hotel that it would be up to the MILF to deal with its renegade commander Ameril Umbra Kato and his forces.

The government and the MILF are currently on an impasse because the administration would not give the rebel group a sub-state, but the MILF has rejected the government’s proposal for autonomy.

“Normally negotiations are very far apart. Then, with the expectation that we will have to focus on certain points, then a compromise will bring you closer to a (resolution),” Aquino said.

The President said he asked MILF chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim to explain exactly what they meant about “self-governance” that would be different from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

“When you say self-governance, the ARMM already, by the laws that are existing by the workings of the present Constitution, has rights that are not imbued in any other region. What enhancements do you need there? What powers are necessary that don’t exist there?” he asked.

“I am asking them to define it. But, of course, that will be left to our meeting and that will be left to the panels to actually thresh out each and every detail,” Aquino said.

Aquino said he was not giving any deadline for the negotiations since “our only goal is to achieve peace.”

‘An offer’

Government chief peace negotiator Marvic Leonen clarified the government’s draft peace package handed over last month to the MILF was “an offer,” not a counter-proposal, to the creation of a sub-state.

Leonen also denied reports, quoting MILF sources, that the peace talks in Malaysia last month went into a deadlock following the MILF’s rejection of the government offer.

Leonen said the government panel is ready to sit down again with its MILF counterpart to build consensus on how both sides can address the Mindanao Moro issue.

“We can retell the history of Mindanao, the intricacies of its problems,” Leonen said. - With Delon Porcalla, Jaime Laude, Alexis Romero, John Unson