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MILF: Palace-created agency for Mindanao rehab ‘both good and bad’


The Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Saturday said the latest economic initiative of Malacañang in war-torn areas of Mindanao, called the Bangsamoro Development Assistance Fund (BDAF), is “both good and bad." In an article posted on the MILF website, deputy chairman Khaled Musa of the MILF committee on information also noted that the Palace-created BDAF is a “namesake" of a similar agency organized by the secessionist movement nearly 10 years ago. The BDAF is “good in the sense that it somehow speaks for helping the depressed populations of Mindanao," Musa said. But it is also “bad because agencies created by executive orders [that are] not the product of negotiation can be abolished anytime by the president or the incoming president," he added. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently issued Executive Order 872 creating the BDAF, purportedly to speed up rehabilitation and economic development of areas in Mindanao affected by armed conflict, the Manila Bulletin reported on March 31. The agency’s fund mechanism is meant to access and channel funds from the Organization of Islamic Conference, its special bodies and member countries for Mindanao development, the news report said. BDAF will cull its initial funding and operations from the President's contingency fund, with an allocated amount of P100 million. The MILF information officer noted, however, that the BDAF also happens to be “the namesake" of the Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA), which was organized by the MILF and a product of negotiations with the government. The government and MILF had signed the Tripoli Agreement on Peace on June 22, 2001 which provided for, among others, the creation of the BDA as a development arm of the MILF, Musa said. BDAF's creation, on the other hand, was recommended during the tripartite review of the 1996 peace agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which took a separate path from the peace talks with the rival MILF. BDAF is supposed to serve as the government’s implementing arm for the "economic catch-up plan" related to implementation of the RP-MNLF peace agreement. Under EO 872, the President also established a Fund Governing Board (FGB), led by a chairman recommended by the MNLF, to manage the BDAF. The chairman, along with board members, will be appointed by the President. MILF’s Musa said that the creation of the BDAF is good as part of the effort to remove “the remaining thorns" for the full implementation of the GRP-MNLF Final Agreement of 1996 "pursuant to the way government wants it done."—Nikka Corsino/JV, GMANews.TV

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