New OPAPP chief endorse BOL in Maguindanao peace forum

MAGUINDANAO --- The new presidential peace adviser who fought southern Muslim secessionists for decades endorsed the Bangsamoro Organic Law during a large multi-sectoral forum in the province Sunday.The retired Armed Forces chief Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr., now at the helm of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, told thousands who participated in the activity that the BOL, or Republic Act 11054, is the best remedy to the now five-decade Moro issue hounding Southern Philippines.Thousands, among them community leaders and incumbent local officials, joined in Sunday’s pro-BOL forum at Barangay Gambar in Kabuntalan town in the first district of Maguindanao.Galvez, a Christian, graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1985 and was assigned in hostile southern provinces for about half of his more than 30-year military career.He served as commander of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division in Maguindanao prior to his successive stints as chief of the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City and as top official of the Armed Forces, a post he left only last December 12, his retirement day.Galvez said voters in the proposed Bangsamoro territory ought to support the BOL being a product of more than 20 years of talks between Malacañang and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.He urged residents of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to vote in favor of the BOL during a plebiscite on January 21 that would seal its fate.One ratified, the BOL shall pave the way for the replacement of ARMM with an MILF-led Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM, based on two compacts between the government and the rebel group --- the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.Besides Galvez, the revolutionary figurehead of the MILF, Hadji Murad Ebrahim and their chief negotiator, Muhaquer Iqbal of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, also took turns urging voters in the ARMM to cast an affirmative vote for the BOL during the plebiscite on January 21.Also present in Sunday’s event in Barangay Gambar were Maguindanao Rep. Sandra Sema and spouse, the former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, both staunch supporters of the peace process between the government and the MILF.The Sema couple has actively been campaigning for the ratification of the BOL. The lawmaker's husband, more known in Mindanao as Datu Mus, is a senior official of one of two groups in the Moro National Liberation Front.The MNLF forged a peace deal with the national government on September 2, 1996.The Commission on Elections will administer the exercise in all five provinces of ARMM --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi --- with the help of OPAPP and different peace advocacy groups helping push the southern peace process forward.The Comelec will also administer the BOL plebiscite in Cotabato City, in parts of Lanao del Norte and and North Cotabato and in Isabela City, the former capital of Basilan.