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ROMAN
Catholic bishops and their Muslim counterparts, ulama,
will hold a conference on Wednesday in Davao City, with
the government-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) on
top of the agenda.
Invited
to attend the 10 a.m. discussions on the salient points
of the agreement are the government peace panelists, led
by Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and Press Secretary
Jess Dureza.
Peace
advocates in Mindanao, including the Peace Now for
Mindanao Movement, which recently opened a devoted
blogspot on the World Wide Web, will also send
representatives.
The
opposition, meanwhile, blamed President Arroyo’s
“selfish agenda” of holding on to power beyond 2010 for
the resumption of armed hostilities in Central Mindanao
that has claimed the lives of several soldiers and MILF
rebels.
“Christian and Muslim lives are being lost. Thousands of
families are displaced. Soldiers are being killed and
wounded. Is this the price that Mindanao has to pay just
to advance Arroyo’s selfish agenda?” said Makati Mayor
Jejomar Binay, United Opposition (UNO) president, in a
statement. “President Arroyo has blood on her hands.”
Binay,
who earlier warned of the possibility of the government
declaring martial law should the conflict between the
military and the MILF escalate, expressed dismay over
Malacañang’s statement that a shift to a federal system
through Charter change was the end objective of the
controversial memorandum of agreement with the MILF.
With
Malacañang’s statement, UNO spokesman Adel Tamano said,
“The real motive for the govt-MILF agreement has been
finally admitted by President Arroyo.”
“This
brouhaha over the Mindanao peace process was never about
justice for the Moros after all. It is about Charter
change, which has always been the top agenda of the
President,” Tamano said.
Cotabato
Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, who on Sunday said that, if
studied in a broader sense, the agreement could lead to
a lasting peace for Mindanao, is expected to preside
over the conference that could, once and for all, settle
differing issues and perceptions on the MOA-AD, which
the Supreme Court stopped from being formally signed
recently.
“No
matter how one looks at it, the agreement is a
remarkable document. It is a serious attempt to balance
national sovereignty and Bangsamoro aspirations for
self-determination and freedom,” Quevedo was quoted as
saying on Monday.
A leader
of two big Bangsamoro organizations on Tuesday) said
Sen. Mar Roxas II might as well kiss his presidential
ambition in the 2010 national elections goodbye if he
does stop attacking the merits of the agreement.
Lacsamana Dalibig, chieftain of the Muslim Multi-sectoral
Movement for Peace and Development (MMMPD) and the
Islamic Movement on Electoral Reform for Good Government
(IMERG), said Roxas “won’t get any vote from
peace-loving Bangsamoro people in the 2010 elections
through grandstanding against the MOA-AD.
“He [Roxas]
might as well kiss his presidential bid goodbye right
now,” Dalibig said. “He won’t get any vote from us
because this early, he has already shown to the whole
country that he is anti-peace and pro-war. We want peace
now and this (MOA-AD) is our only chance.”
On
Monday, Roxas urged the Supreme Court, which earlier
issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that
effectively stopped the scheduled formal signing of the
MOA-AD, to decide with finality and junk the agreement.
The
Court is scheduled to hear the petitions against the
agreement on Friday. (With M. Cayon) |
