ARMM gov’t fails to address plight of peace pact areas

COTABATO CITY — The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) government has "miserably failed" to address the plight of war-devastated communities covered by the Sept. 2, 1996 peace pact between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front, the MNLF’s new central leadership said.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema said it was just fortunate that some non-government organizations (NGOs) have extended socio-economic assistance to their former fighters in farming communities.

In a three-day meeting in Davao City last week, MNLF leaders voted to retain Sema as secretary-general.

"We have seen how the ARMM has, in the past years, turned into a simple regional government unit without enough powers and fiscal capabilities to help rebuild the communities covered by the Sept. 2, 1996 truce," Sema said in a statement.

ARMM Gov. Parouk Hussin, himself an MNLF member, said his administration has equitably divided its attention between the MNLF and other sectors in the region in the past two years.

"The ARMM government is for all people in the region, not just for the MNLF," Hussin’s information staffers quoted him as saying in reaction to Sema’s statement.

Hussin was elected ARMM governor in November 2001 and was personally installed by President Arroyo on Jan. 5, 2002.

During their Davao City meeting, MNLF leaders named ARMM Assemblyman Hatimil Hassan as chairman of the front’s central committee, giving him the authority to oversee MNLF affairs with the help of other members of the central leadership.

Hassan hails from Basilan which became a component-province of the ARMM following the Aug. 14, 2001 plebiscite on the expanded autonomous set-up.

He took over the MNLF on an "interim basis" after a bloc ousted Nur Misuari as chairman due to lack of confidence in his leadership in April 2001.

Sema said the ARMM government would have been the proper conduit to link up Malacañang and communities of impoverished MNLF members unfit for integration into either the Armed Forces or the Philippine National Police.

"We have yet to develop many of these communities," he said.

Some MNLF leaders present in the Davao City meeting also raised as an urgent issue what they described as the ARMM government’s "lackluster performance" in helping resolve the recent hostilities between the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in certain parts of Central Mindanao.

Sema, who chairs the Regional Development Council, said MNLF leaders also sought a review of the joint implementation by the MNLF and the government of the 1996 peace agreement.