26 July 2016•Update: 26 July 2016
By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines
Leaders of two former Muslim rebel groups have welcomed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for Congress to pass a law that seals peace in the Muslim south, pledging Tuesday to reciprocate his commitment.
In his inaugural State of the Nation address Monday, Duterte had outlined the injustice suffered by the Muslim community and stressed that conflicts in Mindanao island were the result of a centuries-old historical injustice.
He reiterated his call to give the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) -- which would have sealed a peace deal between the government and the Philippines’ largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but was shelved during his election campaign -- a chance.
The chair of the largest of three factions of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), from which the MILF broke away, expressed hope Tuesday that “he [Duterte] would be the last president we are to negotiate with”.
“We are inspired by his being positive on the peace process. We will reciprocate with honor and vigor," Muslimin Sema was quoted by the Philstar news website as saying.
The MILF’s vice chairman for political affairs said his group was confident that Duterte -- the Philippines’ first president from Mindanao who served 22 years as mayor of southern Davao City -- would fulfill his promise to abide by all agreements signed with Moro fronts.
“No one will understand better the Moro issue but a Mindanaoan,” Ghazali Jaafar said, referring to how Duterte descends from the indigenous Maranaw -- among the Moro tribes -- and Lumad, who generally follow Christianity and Animism.
Ahead of Duterte’s June 30 inauguration, the Sema-led MNLF and the MILF agreed to promote a common roadmap, signing a joint communique aimed at “harmonizing” their separate peace overtures with the government.
Sema’s MNLF faction has backed the MILF’s ongoing peace process with the government, despite a faction under founding chairman Nur Misuari considering the MILF’s 2014 peace deal with the government a betrayal of a 1996 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)-brokered agreement.
Misuari is currently a fugitive, eluding charges filed against him and his men for a siege on the predominantly Christian city of Zamboanga in September 2013, in which around 300 people were killed and thousands of houses razed. Duterte has expressed willingness to meet with Misuari as well.
The 2014 deal would have been sealed by the BBL.
“It is easier to solve the Mindanao problem now while the moderate, older Moro leaders are still alive,” Sema stressed Tuesday. “The next generation of Moro leaders will surely be radical and dealing with them might be tediously difficult.”
