Duterte wants peace pact with Misuari’s MNLF

President Rodrigo Duterte is eyeing another peace agreement with the Bangsamoro, this time with the Moro National Liberation Front led by Nur Misuari.

Duterte and Misuari met in Malacañang on Monday, a day before the MNLF founding leader left the country to attend international conferences in the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

“Kaya sabi ko itong kay Nur, areglo tayo dito. Sabi ni Nur, he is willing to talk, and he has waited this long for me to make a decisive decision when he comes back," Duterte said in a speech before the League of Municipalities of the Philippines.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año were both present when he discussed the matter with Misuari.

"Sabi ko, 'Time for us to craft a new deal for the MNLF of Misuari',” Duterte said.

Duterte said that he assigned Año, Lorenzana and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Carlito Galvez Jr. to craft the deal with the MNLF.

Duterte said that Misuari had no intention to fight against the government, but rather negotiate and have talks.

“Iyan, kailangan pa natin ‘yan. And but they are revolutions driven with territorial intentions or objectives,” Duterte said.

“Ngayon, kung naplantsa mo ‘yan and we are able to talk to them, you must understand Philippine history and the core of what ails this country.”

The Monday meeting in Malacañang between Duterte and Misuari was their first since the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) and the formation of a transition authority that will govern the new Bangsamoro region until elections in 2022.

Recently, the Yusuf Jikiri-faction of the MNLF lamented the five seats given to the group in the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) which assumed the leadership from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Tuesday.

Galvez, however, said the MNLF had “equitable representation” in the BTA.

The Cabinet official said on Monday that  bringing about necessary reforms to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao depended "not on the number of representatives per sector or grouping but on the effectiveness, efficiency and sincerity” of each BTA member.

“The BTA represents not just the MILF and MNLF but the entirety of the Moro and non-Moro people,” Galvez said.

The BTA is headed by interim chief minister and Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman Murad Ebrahim.

The BOL is  a product of the peace deal inked in 2014 by the government and the MILF, incidentally a group that split from the MNLF in 1977.

The MNLF itself forged a peace pact with the government in 1996.

The agreement led to the formation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which Misuari at one time led as its governor. —NB, GMA News