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THE PHILIPPINES

Peace agreement with MILF

BOTTOM LINE

BARRISTER HARUN UR RASHID
THE Philippines, with more than 90% Christian population, has faced separatist movements from Muslims for decades in Mindanao, where the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) with 11,000 members is based. The demand of the Muslims is for setting up of an autonomous self-governed territory in the southern Mindanao region, the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines.
On March 27, the government of the Philippines and the MILF reportedly signed the historic Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in the presence of the Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Razak, ending the 40-year armed conflict which has cost an estimated 120,000 lives. A thousand people, including almost 500 representatives of the MILF, attended that historic event at the president's Malacahang palace grounds in Manila.
The new autonomous region will be named Bangsamoro, after the Moros - or Moors, which was how the Spanish used to refer to the followers of Islam -living there.
Members of the Muslim community are concentrated in five provinces of western Mindanao, in which they represent the majority. The Muslim population is over 300,000 in the island, as of 2012. Approximately 14% of the children in Mindanao attend Islamic schools. During the 2002-03 school year, the government announced a programme to integrate madrasas into the country's national education system.
The peace agreement foresees the creation of an autonomous region for the Muslim population in the southern Mindanao region. It will have a power-sharing agreement
with the central government, allowing its leadership to control most of its own natural resources and revenues. Elections are to be held there by mid-2016.
Observers say the agreement recognises the justness and legitimacy of the cause of the Bangsamoro people and their aspiration for meaningful autonomy through a democratic process. It will correct historical injustice, and equitably diffuse wealth and political power.
In the past, the government had signed the 1996 truce with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which was shattered in November 2001 and its leader Nur Misuari was discredited. Another splintergroup, MILF, emerged and continued to demand self-government. Malaysia has acted intermittently as a moderator to bring peace in the island since 2003.
However, armed clashes between security forces and MILF guerillas continued, and Presidents Ramos, Estrada and Gloria Arroyo failed to bring peace in Mindanao.
President Aquino has vowed to make a negotiated deal with the MILF as one of his legacies. But many of the measures that need to be taken to build peace in Mindanao go beyond his term of office, which ends in 2016.
A framework agreement was signed last October. It was witnessed by the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. The framework deal follows long negotiations to spell out the details of the October agreement
After abandoning the armed struggle, the MILF has said it will transform itself into a social movement while also building a political party as a vehicle for its members to participate in governing the region. Part of the deal is to decommission its own armed members along with the taking of a host of complementary measures to normalise the situation in once conflict-affected communities.
It will give the leaders of Bangsamoro more political and economic powers, and provides for the gradual transfer of law enforcement from the army to the Bangsamoro police in a "phased and gradual manner."
The Bangsamoro autonomous political entity will be
run by a ministerial government, which will be in the form of an assembly with an elected chief minister. It will be not an Islamic state.
The Bangsamoro Basic Law, which is still being drafted, will define the relations between the local government units, the Bangsamoro government and the central government in Manila.
Throughout the implementation of all agreed measures, peace panels of both parties will oversee the efforts while a third-party body, composed of a mix of international and domestic entities, will monitor the actual achievement of the detailed milestones.
The peace panels will be disbanded once an Exit Agreement is forged between the parties, signaling the full implementation of their respective commitments as embodied in the CAB.
Since President Aquino cannot run in the next presidential election, the 2016 presidential election is truly crucial to the future of the Bangsamoro. It can only be hoped that those who run for president will adopt a policy of fully supporting the Bangsamoro and not undermine it in any manner or form.
Furthermore, it is reported that the peace deal must be enacted into a law and approved in a plebiscite in the country. The law must also withstand likely challenge in the Supreme Court. Despite the above challenges, the people who gathered on the day the peace deal was signed at the presidential palace were hopeful that the deal would bring lasting peace to the troubled area.
Finally, and most importantly, the peace deal could allow Manila to commit much-needed resources to infrastructure investment and social spending. Both the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank raised their growth forecasts for the Philippine economy as a result of the peace agreement.
The writer is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.