MARAWI CITY, Lanao del Sur, Aug. 7 -- The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPAPP) in partnership with the Mindanao State University (MSU) conducted a dialogue on the updates of the peace talks between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The first leg of the dialogue was held Monday, August 5, in Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao (IPDM) Convergence Hall in MSU main campus, this city.
It was participated in by faculty, staff and students from the Public Administration, History, Sociology and Anthropology, Islamic Studies, International Relations, and Political Science departments of the university.
MSU President Macapado Muslim said the dialogue aims to discuss some of the important points, highlights and updates on the on-going peace process.
"It is in this process that we hope everybody will be with us in every step of the way," said GPH Peace Panel Chair Prof. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, who gave a brief background on the talks.
She said the President’s instructions were very clear that the process should be transparent and inclusive, that is, to keep the people informed on the developments and to make sure that the outcome of the peace agreement will benefit everyone.
Coronel-Ferrer said the President also instructed that the agreement should be framed within the bounds and flexibility of the Constitution.
She emphasized that the Constitution already gives a lot of answers to the problems of the country, the most important thing is, to look into all kinds of mechanisms that will be put in place to make sure that the principle of removing cultural inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the common good will be operationalized.
"The challenge is not so much on acknowledging the uniqueness of this part of the country and on the desire of the people for political and fiscal autonomy but exactly on how to be able to take that in practice to make it work and find the lasting solution to peace," she added.
Meanwhile, GPH Peace Panel Member Undersecretary Yasmin Busran-Lao said they hope to put in place three transitional bodies for the period 2012-2013, the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, the Third-Party Monitoring Team, and the Joint Normalization Committee.
The Bangsamoro Transition Commission which was created after the signing of the Framework Agreement will draft the Basic Law, propose Constitutional amendments, assist in development projects, and get inputs from the people through consultations and dialogues.
The recently convened Third-Party Monitoring Team is an external body to monitor the implementation of the agreement.
She said they hope to convene the Joint Normalization Committee soon to look into the annex on normalization to address the reconciliation and justice component of the negotiation and the issue on what to do with the combatants and their weapons.
She explained that the Framework Agreement and the four annexes, namely, Transitional Modalities and Arrangements, Revenue Generation and Wealth Sharing, Power Sharing, and Normalization will make up the Comprehensive Agreement.
The Framework Agreement was signed last October 2012 while the Annex on Transitional Modalities and Arrangements was finished in February. The Annex on Revenue Generation and Wealth Sharing, on the other hand, was signed by the GPH-MILF panels last month.
The second leg of the dialogue was held, August 6, in MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology campus.
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