Gov’t, MILF agree to hasten stalled decommissioning process

PEACE PATH Combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front gather inside Camp Darapanan, the group’s main headquarters in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte. —BONG S. SARMIENTO

COTABATO CITY—The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have agreed to accelerate the stalled decommissioning of the front’s fighters and weapons following a special meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, over the weekend.

With Malaysia facilitating the meeting, Peace Implementing Panel chairs Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento of the government and Mohagher Iqbal of the MILF signed an addendum on the socioeconomic development program for decommissioned combatants and the six previously acknowledged MILF camps.

The panels said the agreement adopted an “integrated, beneficiary-centered” approach to speed up socioeconomic interventions for decommissioned combatants.

The decommissioning process was stalled in July last year after the MILF suspended the fourth and final phase, involving its remaining 14,000 combatants and 2,450 weapons.

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in 2014, 26,145 MILF combatants, or 65 percent of its estimated 40,000 members, and 4,625 weapons have been decommissioned.

MILF chair Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim said the front would resume the final phase once the government substantially complies with the socioeconomic package agreed upon for decommissioned fighters.

During the second phase of decommissioning in 2019, the government committed to a P1-million package for each deactivated combatant.

Ebrahim said the lack of these interventions had prevented the 26,145 decommissioned combatants from successfully transitioning to productive civilian life.

Sarmiento and Iqbal pledged to put the normalization track back on schedule and hasten its implementation.

With the political track of the CAB considered substantially completed following the Sept. 14 election of the first Bangsamoro Parliament, the independent Third Party Monitoring Team (TPMT) said normalization remains the major task under the peace agreement.

The TPMT said decommissioning, camp transformation, disbanding private armed groups, and transitional justice and reconciliation remain unfinished.