Local execs vow support for GPH-MILF wealth-sharing deal

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Public officials on Monday assured their support to the newly crafted wealth-sharing deal the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front agreed on as an annex to the Oct. 15, 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro (FAB).

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose province is the main bastion of the MILF, said his office and the inter-agency provincial peace and order council recognizes and supports the wealth-sharing deal which the government’s chief negotiator, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and her MILF counterpart, Muhaquer Iqbal, signed at about Saturday midnight in Malaysia.

“We in Maguindanao want a peaceful resolution of this decades-old `Moro problem’ not just because we belong to the Moro community, but because we want lasting peace in Mindanao to reign via peaceful means, through consensus-building,“ Mangudadatu said.  

Mangudadatu said he will instruct his 36 constituent-mayors to reproduce copies of the deal for distribution to barangay officials that can help disseminate its contents.

Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and his regional local government secretary, lawyer Anwar Malang, also both appreciated the deal reached by the GPH and MILF panels.

Malang said the ARMM’s Department of Interior and Local Government is ready to help educate the public on the intricacies of the wealth-sharing package, which is to be added as an annex to the FAB.

The FAB is to become the basis for the crafting of a law needed to legitimize the setting up of a new MILF-led Bangsamoro political entity.

The Bangsamoro entity is to replace the ARMM, which is to be deactivated by the same enabling law, to be crafted by the Transition Commission, which is comprised of eight representatives from the MILF and seven from the government.

Mangudadatu said the recent breakthroughs in the continuing peace talks between the government and the MILF have also been helping improve the investment climate of the province.

He said there are reports of local traders expanding their businesses lately, convinced of the improving security situation in Maguindanao, ushered by the peace process.

The ARMM’s Regional Board of Investments also confirmed expansions in ventures of foreign investors, such as the Cavendish banana plantations in the second district of the province.