MindaNews / 07 August – Senator Imee Marcos has sought an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the postponement of the fourth and final phase of decommissioning of 14,000 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and 2,450 weapons.
Marcos filed Senate Resolution 49 last August 4, a copy of which MindaNews obtained Thursday, seeking a probe on the suspension of the deactivation of MILF combatants “as it raises concerns and potential implications on public safety, national security and trust in the Bangsamoro peace process.”
“It is important for Congress to be informed about the actual status and progress of the decommissioning process and the proper use of funds, as well as the causes of delay and its abrupt postponement, in order to assess the need for additional legislative measures,” the resolution stated.
The resolution was submitted to the Senate plenary on August 6 and referred to the committees on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation.
So far, a total of 26,145 MILF combatants had been decommissioned, or 65 percent of the 40,000-strong MILF forces.
In a show of goodwill during the administration of the late President Benigno Aquino III, the MILF deactivated 145 combatants and 75 weapons on June 16, 2015.
The second phase of decommissioning commenced on September 7, 2019 involving 12,000 combatants and 2,100 weapons, during the term of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The third phase began on November 8, 2021, with the deactivation of 14,000 MILF combatants and 2,450 weapons, also during the Duterte administration.
Last July 19, the MILF Central Committee decided to stop the final phase of decommissioning, claiming that the Government of the Philippines (GPH) allegedly failed to substantially comply with the provisions of the Annex on Normalization.
The Annex on Normalization is an integral part of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB). The FAB, among others, constitutes the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the final peace agreement signed by the Philippine government and the MILF in 2014 after 17 years of negotiations.
“It is hereby resolved that the decommissioning of the remaining 14,000 MILF combatants and 2,450 weapons shall commence only upon the substantial compliance of the GPH in the other tracks of normalization, including the provision of socio-economic package as agreed upon by the GPH and MILF Peace Implementing Panels to the 26,145 combatants,” the resolution stated.
MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim and Muhammad Ameen, MILF chair and secretary, respectively, signed the resolution made public last July 26.
The other tracks of the Annex on Normalization are policing, redeployment of troops and units of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, disbandment of private armed groups, socio-economic development, detection and clearance of unexploded ordnances, transitional justice and reconciliation, and the confidence-building measures of camps transformation, and amnesty, pardon and other available processes to persons charged with or convicted of crimes connected to the armed conflict in Mindanao.
Ebrahim said that to be true to the letter and spirit of the Annex on Normalization, “there should be some showing of substantial compliance” of the socio-economic interventions for combatants who have been profiled for decommissioning before other combatants are made to undergo the initial steps towards decommissioning.
The MILF Central Committee lamented that of the 26,145 decommissioned MILF members, “not a single one has successfully undergone ‘transition to productive civilian life’, as other interventions for decommissioning have essentially not been provided, save for the P100,000 per combatant.”
The national government, through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPRU), has expressed dismay over the decision of the MILF to stop the final phase of decommissioning of its fighters.
Presidential Assistant David Diciano, of OPAPRU’s Office for Bangsamoro Transformation, belied that the GPH has not substantially delivered on its socioeconomic commitments to MILF fighters who have been deactivated.
While the CAB was signed in 2014, the GPH and MILF Peace Implementing Panels only approved the Socioeconomic Package Framework for the MILF decommissioned combatants in February 2024, Diciano said in a statement on Thursday, July 31, noting that “major socioeconomic interventions have been implemented since 2015.”
“The 26,145 MILF combatants decommissioned since 2015 and the six MILF camps acknowledged in the CAB are recipients of ongoing socioeconomic programs not only from the OPAPRU but through a whole-of-nation approach provided by the Inter-Cabinet Cluster Mechanism on Normalization (ICCMN) agencies,” he said.
These programs include the P100,000 transitional cash assistance provided to each combatant upon decommissioning, he said.
Diciano said the government has also invested an estimated P4 billion since 2019 for other socioeconomic support for the decommissioned MILF combatants.
He claimed that “many MILF combatants have expressed their eagerness to be decommissioned,” seeing the benefits enjoyed by those already deactivated.
Diciano said the MILF has “repeatedly delayed the final phase of the decommissioning process since 2022.”
“This (was) despite the goodwill of the National Government, which has allocated substantial funds in the amount of P488 million for the Phase 4 decommissioning since 2023, only to be returned to the national treasury as required by government financial regulations in 2024,” he said. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)
