Southerners welcome Malacañang's amnesty program for ex-Moro rebels

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Southerners are certain the assurance of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to grant amnesty to former Moro guerillas can hasten efforts of putting closure to the secessionist issue hounding Mindanao since the 1970s.

The president mentioned in his state of the nation address last Monday that he will help former rebels thrive in peace via an amnesty program, while sustaining progress in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The BARMM, created in 2019 via a plebiscite, is a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

BARMM’s labor minister, Muslimin Sema, also chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, said Saturday they appreciate the president’s commitment to grant former rebels amnesty for them to regain their legal rights while being assimilated into mainstream society.

“That would be so nice. We in the MNLF and the MILF fought for an identity, for lasting peace and development via self-governance,” Sema told reporters via online Messenger Saturday.

The MNLF has its September 2, 1996 final truce with Malacañang while the MILF has two compacts with the national government --- the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.

A resident of Carmen town in Cotabato province, the 72-year-old Amirudin Lamla Guiabar, an MNLF combatant in the 1970s, said he is confident that his two sons, Muktar and Ansaruddin, both MILF members, can soon secure an amnesty from the national government.

Bangsamoro Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo, regional spokesperson of BARMM, said Saturday they were elated with the president’s announcement, via his SONA last Monday, to push his administration’s amnesty program forward to hasten the spread of peace and sustainable development in Mindanao.

Sinarimbo said the grant of amnesty to former guerillas will hasten their reintroduction into their hometowns where they can peacefully engage in income-generating projects.

He said the BARMM government has been providing former rebels with livelihood support for them to have steady sources of income to sustain their families and the schooling of their children.

BARMM’s chief minister, Ahod Ebrahim, is chairman of the MILF’s central committee.

Sema and Sinarimbo separately said they also appreciate the continuing support of Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez, Jr. to the security and development initiatives of the BARMM government.

“The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity is a strong `peacebuilding partner’ of BARMM,” Sinarimbo said.