VILLAMOR PARADE Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and Air Force vice commander Lt. General Apolonio Ugale Jr. salute the parade of colors during the 6th Air Defense Command Foundation anniversary at Villamor Air Base.

Palace: MILF has until June 1 to reform

By MIA GONZALEZ
TODAY Reporter

Modifying its ultimatum on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from two months to two weeks, Malacañang Tuesday gave the separatist rebels until June 1 to renounce terrorism or be declared a terrorist organization.

Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said a Cabinet security committee recommended that the government ask the United States to include the MILF on its list of foreign terrorists if the rebels don’t stop attacking and killing civilians.

The MILF was blamed for a bomb attack that killed 10 people Saturday.

Bunye said the new deadline was set during the four-hour Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security presided by President Arroyo via teleconferencing from General Santos City, on Monday night.

“We will make a decision on this [FTO tag], possibly by June 1. A much shorter period is now being given to the MILF so that [it] can mend [its] ways and show [its] sincerity in pursuing peace negotiations. After that, the government will decide on whether it would declare the MILF as terrorists,” Bunye said.

In a statement, President Arroyo said, “The government is nearing a decision point on whether to declare the MILF a terrorist organization, and to take the necessary operational and diplomatic measures to strengthen this prospective policy.”

She said the decision will be made after a meeting of foreign ministers of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference in Tehran at the end of the month, during which the situation in Mindanao will be discussed.

Bunye said the rebels “have to dissociate themselves from any of the terrorist organizations: the Jama’ah Islamiyah, the al-Qaeda, the Abu Sayyaf, and they should stop immediately these acts which tend to harm civilians.”

He added, “If there is some show of sincerity or some honest effort on the other side during that period, perhaps, there will be no declaration.”

At the commemoration of the death centenary of Apolinario Mabini at Malacañang Park, the President said that during the days leading to June 1, the government will consult with stakeholders in the peace process in Mindanao.

Malaysian Ambassador Mohamed Taufik Mohamed Noor said the Philippines will have to make its position on the issue “very clear” but added that it would support the Philippines, whatever its decision may be.

“To the MILF, Malaysia would seriously hope that they would disprove what they have been up to. . .We hope that the MILF would seriously consider and see what they want them to be regarded also by the government of the Philippines as well as Malaysia and other countries in the OIC and the world at large,” Taufik said.

The Philippines is still debating an antiterrorism bill. But by having the United States declare the MILF a terrorist organization, the government would pave the way for an international campaign to cut the rebels’ support. Washington has already included Philippine communist rebels and the Abu Sayyaf bandit group on its list of foreign terrorists.

The government has been reluctant to put a terrorist tag on the rebels, who have been fighting for a separate Muslim state in Mindanao, for fear it may disrupt sporadic peace talks.

But after a spate of bombings and raids left more than 100 people killed and injured in the last three months, the President Arroyo warned the rebels “time was running out” for them to prove they really want peace and distance themselves from foreign terrorists.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel suggested that instead of threatening to declare the MILF a terrorist group Mrs. Arroyo should take a new tack in pursuing the peace negotiation by tapping the United States as a peace broker.

“The President’s deadline on the MILF won’t work. The only way to deal with the MILF decisively is to get the United States as an honest peace broker,” Pimentel said. Declaring the MILF as a terrorist group would make the government’s efforts to bring peace in Mindanao harder, as it would only alienate the MILF and leave it no option but to keep on waging war, Pimentel said.

At the House of Representatives, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan Rep. Imee Marcos of Ilocos Norte proposed the scrapping of the interim agreements between the government and the MILF.

Marcos said the rescinding of the agreements would clear the way for the “one final peace negotiation” between the government and the separatist group to end the strife in Mindanao.

Marcos, vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said the interim agreements, which include those signed in Tripoli, Libya, and in Malaysia, signed by the two panels have become the instrument of “disagreements” that led to the war and violence in the South.

She also called on both the government and the MILF to renounce war and violence as a prerequisite for the holding of fresh of peace negotiations.