Aquino orders OPAPP to push peace process beyond his term

MANILA, Philippines — President Benigno Aquino III ordered the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) to keep making plans on promoting the peace process during the transition period and beyond his term, Malacañang said Sunday.

Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said Aquino’s directive to push the peace process in the remaining months of his tenure until the next administration has been given to the OPAPP through Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.

Coloma said Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita "Ging" Deles said the government needs to continue talking to stakeholders including Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) with the government peace panel in 2014.

"We will still need to do consultations including and especially with the MILF, but measures will include strengthening existing peace bodies and mechanisms to include the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, ceasefire and other joint security mechanisms, joint bodies for socioeconomic interventions," Coloma said, citing Deles.

Deles had said the government wants to "operationalize the recommendations of the transitional justice and reconciliation commission regarding the healing of the wounds of war, and moving toward sharpened interfaith and multicultural dialogue and cooperation and undertake necessary groundwork to ensure the success of the legal political track in the next administration.

"We need to do all that is possible to ensure the full implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro beyond this administration," Deles said.

The CAB led to the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law currently pending in Congress. Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. submitted a substitute bill for the BBL he called Basic Law on the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Senate President Franklin Drilon expressed difficulty in passing the BBL, saying there is not enough time for its passage.

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