DAVAO CITY—The implementing panels of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have extended the stay of the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT), even as they welcomed a new facilitator in the implementation of the peace agreement in Moro-populated areas in Mindanao.
The extended stay was contained in a certification from both parties, which also granted the same extended mandate to the Adhoc Joint Action Group (Ahjag). The two parties met anew in Kuala Lumpur on March 21, a year after a lull in their meetings.
Both units have mandates on ensuring the compliance of the ceasefire agreement in 2002, although the Ahjag was specifically mandated to ensure properly coordinated police and military action against crime groups within the areas covered by the peace agreement.
The certification extended the stay of the IMT by another year, up to March 2018.
The IMT unit here, the IMT Batch 11, has ended its one-year stint and is expected to be replaced by another batch after this month. The current batch was headed by Malaysian Maj. Gen. Datuk Wira Zamrose bin Mohd Zain.
The implementing parties said they “recognized the important roles these mechanisms play in the peace process.
Last November Maj. Gen. Zamrose told the BusinessMirror of increased activities of terror groups as he warned the government, including local governments in former conflict areas, to watch out for recruitment activities inside unregistered Arabic-language schools.
He warned of a long lull in the transition of the peace process, from the Aquino administration to the Duterte administration, saying the terrorist recruiters “may find reason to fuel distrust in the government and persuade the discontented into joining their ranks”.
He assured, however, of a prevailing general compliance to the ceasefire agreement, reporting only three incidents of violence last year. While the three incidents erupted due to local fights called “rido” and gunbattle with the breakaway units of the MILF, the IMT and other peace advocate groups prevented them from escalating into cease-fire violations.
The Kuala Lumpur meeting also signed a new term of reference in implementing the provisions of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which was largely made immobile by Congress’s thumbing down of the Bangsamoro basic law (BBL). The BBL was supposed to govern and officially clothe legal authority to the new autonomous body that would be replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The implementing bodies were so-called because they replaced the negotiating panels which became defunct immediately following the signing of the peace agreement in 2015. Their meeting in Kuala Lumpur also welcomed Dato Kamarudin bin Mustafa, who they said “officially assumed the role of Malaysian third-party facilitator and/or special adviser”.
He replaced YM Tengku Dato Ab Ghafar bin Tengku Mohamed.
The joint statement of the implementing parties was signed by Irene M. Santiago, the chairman on government side; and Mohagher Iqbal, her counterpart in the MILF. Dato Kamarudin also signed the statement.