MNLF, OPAPRU remain as peace process partners

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Moro National Liberation Front on Friday reassured of its commitment to preserve the gains of its peace pact with Malacañang, partly meant to improve commerce and trade in southern provinces.

MNLF leaders from across Mindanao and officials of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) also reached a consensus, during a dialogue at Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte Friday, to cooperate in addressing security issues in southern towns and provinces.

The dialogue, attended by senior MNLF officials led by their central committee chairman, Muslimin Sema, was capped off with an “iftar,” the first meal after a day-long Ramadhan fast, at the campus of the Ebrahim Sema Elementary School in Barangay Bagoinged that OPAPRU representatives, led by Secretary Isidro Purisima, hosted as a “unity and thanksgiving banquet.” 

Sema is the current labor minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. 

Sema told Purisima, in the presence of other OPAPRU officials from Manila, that they are supporting extensively the governance initiatives of the now four-year BARMM regional government,whose chief minister, Ahod Ebrahim, is chairman of the central committee of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

“The Moro issue in Mindanao is best addressed via diplomatic and political interventions. We cherish our final peace agreement with the national government,” Sema said.

The MNLF and the national government forged on Sept. 2, 1996 a final peace agreement that ended the group’s more than two decades of secessionist uprising in provinces that now comprise BARMM's territory. The MILF have two compacts with Malacañang, the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro, and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.

The two agreements are products of 22 years of peace talks that paved the way for the creation of BARMM in 2019, replacing the then already 29-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The MNLF has representatives to the 80-seat MILF-led BARMM parliament, among them Romeo Sema, its vice chairman for political affairs.

Purisima, while at Barangay Bagoinged, assured MNLF officials of their focus on programs that can help boost peace and security in Moro communities.

He said President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. is keen on sustaining the government's peace overture with southern Moro communities that his predecessors started.

Sema said there are vast swaths of arable lands in MNLF camps, now known as “peace zones” that are suitable for large-scale propagation of corn, exportable Cavendish bananas, or soy beans.

“Since there is peace now in these areas, we are optimistic that investors from member-countries of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) will soon come in to invest on viable ventures,” Sema said.

The OIC, a global bloc of Muslim countries, including petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, helped broker Malacañang’s separate peace agreements with the MNLF and the MILF, whose central committees are together pushing BARMM’s peace and governance initiatives forward.