|
GMA SONA on peace talks gains overestimated, MILF says
|
|
GMA SONA on peace talks gains overestimated, MILF says
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF], while it appreciated President Arroyo’s optimism on the peace process, disputed her claim that the GRP-MILF Peace Talks is 85% completed. “This overestimation will create a false impression that all the fundamental issues are resolved,” Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief peace negotiator, told Luwaran after listening to the State of the Nation Address [SONA] of President Arroyo yesterday.
“We still have to resolve on the negotiating table fundamental issues like governance and finding a just and lasting final to the Mindanao Problem. There is no shortcut method to resolve these issues except by facing them squarely on the table in an atmosphere of sincerity, understanding, and creativeness.
He said that although the peace process is surging ahead with tremendous gain but the issues before the GRP and Peace Panels to resolve are the most tricky and difficult and could still derail these talks.
The peace talks is supposed to take place this month in Kuala Lumpur, but the Malaysian Government postponed it, saying “both Parties are probably not ready to proceed”. “They need to ion out some other things,” a Malaysian official told Agence France-Presse, declining to reveal the issues to be resolved.
In her SONA, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made no reference of the political crisis that has gripped the country for more than a month now. Instead, she sounded the call for Charter change, and pledged to push ahead with a shift to parliamentary federal system of government, her economic and fiscal reforms at "whatever political cost.
"It's time to start the great debate on Charter change," Arroyo said in the much-awaited speech described as the shortest she had ever delivered in her four years in office.
However, there was no reference to the burning issues rocking her administration, including accusations that she had cheated in the 2004 presidential election and that her husband, son and brother-in-law had accepted payoffs from the "jueteng" racket.
She referred to the current political turmoil only when she said: “Ours is a country divided; the story of our nation is a tale of two Philippines; almost, as it were, two countries under the same name.
Commenting on the shift to parliamentary federal system, Maulana Bobby Alonto, a member of the MILF Peace Panel, described it simply as a landslide victory for local elites to replace those in “Imperial Manila” and they will surely perpetuate the oppression of the weak and marginalized. “If this happens, there will be no end to the problem besetting this country; it will be doomed,” he predicted.
|
|
|
|
