Arroyo official defends PNoy's P5-M grant to MILF

The chief negotiator in the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) during the Arroyo administration on Thursday defended the Aquino administration’s giving of the P5-million to the Bangsamoro Management and Leadership Institute (BMLI). “I am glad President [Benigno] Aquino [III] gave the MILF P5 million for the BMLI," former chief negotiator Silvestre Afable Jr. said in a press statement posted on the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process’ website He confirmed that he was the chief negotiator with the MILF when, in 2006, they reached agreement, across the negotiating table in Kuala Lumpur, to set up the BMLI. “Secretary Jess Dureza was then the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. He may have just forgotten that event," Afable said. Dureza, in his Nov. 1 column in MindaNews, denied that the Arroyo government committed a P5-million fund for BLMI. He served as chief negotiator from 2001 to 2003 and presidential peace adviser from 2006 to 2008. Afable said the BMLI is an offshoot of an agreement in 2001 to form the Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA). He said, at that time, the MILF wanted to try its hand at implementing its own development projects. He said that as the BDA grew, it needed more personnel who could receive, disburse and account for funds; and supervise incipient development teams. The BMLI was the envisioned training school for these personnel. “We requested the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) to work on the basic curriculum and devote trainors to the project, which was done with enthusiasm and zeal," Afable said. Afable said institutions such as the BDA and the BMLI must not be treated negatively because these, alongside the ceasefire, provide the necessary climate for negotiations and stem the urge among fighters to shoot each other. “One must be creative in offering alternatives to those who have been used to live by the gun," he said. He added that when the government and the MILF restored the ceasefire in 2001, they needed to follow up on two key items: first, to get in an International Monitoring Team to help make sure the truce holds; and create the basic institutions to re-channel the energies of MILF fighters-on-hold. “Confidence-building measures lie in the meat of any peace process anywhere in the world. While we seek a political solution in the peace talks, we try to safeguard the ceasefire like precious life itself, and carve out a positive direction for fighters-on-hold—who will hopefully trade their guns for ploughshares when a final settlement is reached," Afable said. He further said the MILF itself has tried its level best to abide by this negotiation-ceasefire-development model as a transitional mechanism to a final political settlement. “Many Filipinos are cynical about this, but I appreciate the fact that President Aquino is not," Afable said. — Amita O. Legaspi/KBK, GMA News