Philippines govt, MILF agree to scrap ARMM | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Philippines govt, MILF agree to scrap ARMM | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent
Edwin Espejo, Apr 25, 2012

In a bid to salvage the stalled peace talks between the government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), members of both negotiating panels have agreed to the creation of a “new autonomous political entity in place of the ARMM” (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao).

The major agreement is contained in a joint declaration signed late Tuesday afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which has been hosting the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the country’s largest Moro rebel group.

In a report, Mindanews’ Carolyn Arguillas said the two parties have also agreed to meet again in May.

The joint declaration contained 10 principles that will guide both parties in addressing the decades old Moro rebellion in Southern Philippines.

GPH peace panel chair Marvic Leonen said the signing of the agreement is a major step in “the discussions of substantive issues in these negotiations.”

Leonen explained that the 10-point principles “are commitments that can be properly accommodated by our current legal and political realities.”

Tuesday’s Kuala Lumpur meeting also included a “list of agreed principles focused on power-sharing and wealth-sharing between the national government and the new political entity, with the following matters reserved for the competence of the national government: defense and external security, foreign policy, coinage and monetary policy, citizenship and naturalization, postal service; common market and global trade, although it added a footnote that the power to enter into economic agreements already allowed under RA 9054 “shall be transferred to the new political entity.”

The peace talks stalled in August last year when the Philippine government offered a 3-for-1 proposal that limited its commitment to “massive economic development; political settlement with the MILF; and cultural-historical acknowledgment.”

It was rejected outright by the MILF who accused the government of failing to address its ancestral domain claim.

Both parties earlier expressed optimism for a negotiated political settlement after Philippine President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III and MILF chair Ibrahim Al Haj Murad held an unprecedented meeting in Japan also in August last year.

The ARMM was created in 1989 under Republic Act 6734 as a result of the then ongoing peace negotiations between the government of the late president Corazon Aquino and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) headed by Nur Misuari.

The law was amended by Republic Act 9054 which expanded the provinces and cities that composed the ARMM. At present, ARMM includes the provinces Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and all their component cities.

The MILF however has reject ted the ARMM and has demanded a delineation of what it claimed a Bangsa Moro juridical entity or a sub-state.

The MILF broke away from the MNLF in the early 1980s after major disagreement over the signing of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and the decision of Misuari to abandon its secessionist stand.

Under the chairmanship of the late Salamat Hashim, the MILF grew to become the largest armed rebel group in the country.

After the death of Salamat, the MILF dropped its bid to establish an Islamic state in southern Mindanao as it opted to enter into a negotiated political settlement with the Philippine government.

Negotiations between the MILF and the Philippine government have been marked by major armed clashes.

In 2000, former President Joseph Estrada declared all out war against the MILF out laid siege to the rebels’ major encampments in Mindanao.  The government overran most of the MILF rebel camp but failed to wipe away the rebels.

In 2001, ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo pursued peace negotiations with the MILF only to launch a major counter-offensive in 2008 in the wake of Moro rebel attacks following the botched signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).