Negotiator: For peace with MILF, Aquino open to Charter change

Newly elected President Benigno Aquino III is open to amending the Philippine's constitution to reach an elusive peace settlement with Moro rebels during his six-year term, an official said Monday. Aquino's strong popularity could help him win support for an accord with the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, in contrast to the Malaysian-brokered talks under his unpopular predecessor that collapsed in 2008, government negotiator Marvic Leonen said. Nearly nine years of negotiations under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo led the drafting of a landmark accord that would have given expanded autonomy to a Muslim homeland in 2008. The deal required constitutional amendments, and was scuttled by fierce opposition from a number of politicians. Leonen said the Aquino administration is willing to launch new attempts to amend the 1987 Constitution if it is crucial to forging lasting peace with the rebels. "The level of confidence is high," Leonen told foreign correspondents in a news conference, adding that the president was sincere in reaching out to the rebels who have been fighting for minority Muslim self-rule for decades. "A hand extended in peace is a hundred times stronger and a million times more courageous than one that picks up a gun," Leonen said. Leonen said the government wants to resume negotiations with the rebels when the holy Muslim month of Ramadan ends in September. He said a truce has been holding, with only 10 skirmishes recorded so far this year. Aquino has said efforts to turn around his impoverished Southeast Asian nation will be futile if it continues to be wracked by violent insurgencies. More than 120,000 people have died in the decades-long conflict in the southern Mindanao region, homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. The difficulty of settling a conflict rooted in problems such as massive poverty was exacerbated by Arroyo's approach to the talks, which were often done in haste and in secrecy without consultation with key stakeholders, Leonen said. Arroyo, now a member of the House of Representatives, was not immediately available for comment. MILF chief Al Haj Murad said last week that he wanted the insurgency to end in his lifetime but added that any future talks would be full of obstacles. — AP