COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/4 February) — Civil society organizations (CSO) in Mindanao are expected to attend a three-day peace summit to celebrate the strides in peace process peace process between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and to map out strategies on how the peace movement in the island can help in the transition period for the Bangsamoro government.
Around 200 CSO leaders and members will attend the summit slated on February 10-12 in Davao City, which will carry the theme “Identifying Synergies for Enhanced Cooperation and Coordination in the Transition Period.”
The summit will bring together community leaders from the Bangsamoro areas, indigenous peoples, evacuees, women, youth and the academe and representatives from the local government units, donors and other key players who are currently involved in the public engagements for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
Among those invited to address the peace summit, which is organized by the Mindanao Civil Society Organizations Platform for Peace (MCSOPP), is Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita Quinto Deles, who was requested to speak on the government’s transition plan for the Bangsamoro.
The MCSOPP, which is composed of at least 120 groups and networks, was tapped by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) to conduct public consultations to help in the crafting of the BBL.
Also invited to the peace summit are the BTC members headed by Mohagher Iqbal, who is also the chief MILF peace negotiator.
Guaimel Alim and lawyer Mary Ann Arnado, MCSOPP steering committee chairperson and secretariat head, respectively, said in a letter the peace movement and CSOs in Mindanao are holding the peace summit “as our collective sense of joy, gratitude and thanksgiving that the fourth and final annex on Normalization has already been signed by the peace panels.”
The GPH and MILF peace panels signed the Annex on Normalization to the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) last January 25 in Malaysia, the third party facilitator. The three previously signed annexes are the Transitional Arrangements and Modalities, Revenue Generation and Wealth Sharing, and Power Sharing.
The FAB and its four annexes shall comprise the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the GPH-MILF final peace agreement expected to be signed not later than this March.
The MCSOPP lauded the GPH and the MILF for signing the FAB and completing its four annexes.
Organizers said the peace summit will also serve as avenue “to pause, celebrate and strategize with us” while preparations are underway for the signing of the CAB and “before we drown ourselves with the gargantuan tasks and demands of the ensuing transition period.”
Arnado said they will present to the BTC, which is drafting the BBL, the initial results of the community consultations conducted through the MCSOPP last December and January.
The peace summit is organized in cooperation with the BTC and with the support of the Facility for Advisory Support for Transition Capacities, a fund jointly administered by the United Nations and the World Bank, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. (MindaNews)