Officials renew support to peace process amid Bangsamoro Assembly

MAGUINDANAO --- Public officials on Monday reassured President Rodrigo Duterte of support to efforts of putting a negotiated closure to the now five-decade Moro rebellion.Their pledges were announced Monday, second day of the grand Bangsamoro Assembly in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao.The assembly, organized by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is to show the solidarity of participating Moro communities in demanding passage of the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, now pending in Congress.The bill is the enabling measure for the implementation of the two compacts between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front --- the October 15, 2013 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the March 27, 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.The draft BBL is also needed to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with an MILF-led Bangsamoro regional entity.Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu said his administration is keen on expanding its scholarship program for Moro, Christian and Lumad students in the province in line with the humanitarian objectives of the envisioned Bangsamoro government. I am to graduate as three-term governor in 2019 but I am sure whoever replaces me will continue what we have started. This program already produced hundreds of Moro professionals, Mangudadatu said.Mangudadatu said his office and the league of mayors in the province both supports the peace overture between the government and the MILF.The provincial government’s Maguindanao Program for Peace and Community Empowerment presently bankrolls the studies of more than 6,000 scholars, about 70 percent of them Moro college students.Security officials, among them senior directorate staff of the Police Regional Office-ARMM, said late Sunday President Rodrigo Duterte is likely to arrive at the assembly via a helicopter to land on a compound of Chinese-owned cornstarch factory near the old Maguindanao capitol in Sultan Kudarat.The old capitol site, venue of the assembly, is now guarded jointly by personnel of the 603rdBrigade and members of the MILF.Presidential guards began coordinating their security preparations with the management of the private firm on Saturday, according officials of the 603rdBrigade.Sources from the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team said the deployment of MILF members to help the military secure the assembly has clearance from the joint ceasefire committee of the front and the government.Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also reaffirmed on Monday his administration’s oft-repeated assurance to facilitate a transition from ARMM to an MILF-led Bangsamoro entity once the BBL is enacted into law and ratified via a plebiscite by voters in its proposed core territory. We shall never be an obstacle to the attainment of peace in the Bangsamoro homeland. We are one with the participants of the assembly. I’m attending the event, Hataman said.He said the Bangsamoro Assembly is one peaceful means of dramatizing the aspirations of Moro sectors to a peaceful solution to the so-called Mindanao secessionist uprising.Ghazali Jaafar, first vice chairman of the MILF, said they are expecting no fewer than a million Moro people to join the assembly to show Duterte their oneness for the approval of the BBL by congress.House Deputy Speaker Sandra Sema, who is representing the first congressional district of Maguindanao, said on Monday she is attending the Bangsamoro Assembly too. By being there, I shall be giving honor to the history of the Bangsamoro people and the Bangsamoro heritage, the lawmaker said.