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MESSAGE OF ARMM GOVERNOR & SPCPD
CHAIRMAN PROF. NUR MISUARI
DURING THE LUNCHEON MEETING WITH MUSLIM CONGRESSMEN AND DIPLOMATIC CORPS
ON AUGUST 3,
1999 AT SHANGRILA PLAZA
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi taala
wabarakatuhu.
I’m very sorry, I don’t feel well because of my
colds and my cough. You know I went to a very hectic
journey through Mindanao and the islands. Two days ago, we
were the guests of the Hon. Governor Sadikul Sahali of
Tawi-Tawi of a very successful Economic Development Summit
attended by local and foreign investors. It was a very
successful one and I salute the honorable governor for his
initiative. When we went to Tawi-Tawi from Zamboanga, it
took us 17 hours by boat. From there, after 2 days, hosted
by him, I proceeded to Jolo and it took us 7 hours by boat
again. And from there after inspecting some projects to
deliver water to some municipalities and also the burning
of huge quantity of marijauna. In Tawi-Tawi, before I left
I was invited by the hon. Governor to burn huge quantity
of marijuana that was seized by his forces and the PNP
there. We burned right inside the plaza. And in Jolo,
there was another huge quantity. I don’t know how much
it was in Tawi -Tawi, they did not tell me, but it must be
big amount but in Jolo that was the third time that we
seized marijuana. It was worth 4.2 million. Previously, we
seized also 2 farm one was worth something like about 4
million the other one was close to 3 million. So we thank
the new provincial police chief, Col. Isa and also the
elements from the marines under Col. Buenaventura and
local MNLF officers and integrees for their success. I’m
sure the PNP were also involved in the seizure of this
farm in Tawi-Tawi and also the other forces there. But of
course, it was the governor himself who spearheaded the
initiative to raid our localities or society of drugs. And
also, in this connection in Jolo, I was told, they have
reduced the incidents of drugs to maximum 20%. Many have
been put in prison. More than 100 drug pushers were
identified and they have to report. Those who did not
report, they were chased to as far as Basilan. But there
is no ____ in the effort to ______ out these very
dangerous drugs, shabu and marijuana.
And also from there, we went to Cotabato, (we
passed by Manila) to join the meeting of the League of
Councilors and vice mayors and at 10:00 at night we
proceeded to Davao City to attend the turn-over ceremony
of the SPDA, the Hon. Former Al Tillah who used to be a
consultant to the Ayala Group of Businesses and who is one
of you who maintains a column in the Manila Bulletin, a
well read column, has taken over. And it was a very
successful turn-over ceremony. The Hon. Aventajado was
there and so with his predecessor the Hon. Sultan Ali
Mindalano, very very peaceful turn-over ceremony.
From Davao, I flew to Cebu City. I went there and I
met the governor, Gov. Pabling Garcia who was kind enough
to receive me and gave me some legal advises about this
very contentious problem in the congress. He used to be a
congressman, he sat in congress for so long. He told me
that he started his tenure in 1987 up to 1995. And from
Cebu I went to Dipolog, there I met our dear friend, a
member of the Consultative Assembly of the SPCPD, the Hon.
Gov. Isagani Amatong, a brother of the governor of
Northern Davao. We were received by him, it was a very
lively meeting, we recalled our life with the Consultative
Assembly. And he’s expecting that once the membership
will be re-appointed by the President then he would be
ready to come and join us. And the area is very peaceful
nowadays, in fact I was supposed to join him in visiting
some municipalities because we were trying to prepare some
program for the construction of roads linking 4 or 5
municipalities. Until now there is no linkage between
them, people will have to go by sea.
And from there we went to Ozamis. From Ozamis, we
went to Kulambugan and from there we went to Iligan then
to Marawi City, we passed the night there in Iligan City.
As usual in all these places
we have to meet our people there including of
course the indigenous people where they brought up some
problems to us. I had even a very important meeting with
them right in the plaza in Dipolog City. There are
hundreds of people but they were supposed to be several
thousands of them who were ready to come down from the
mountain to meet us but because of the heavy rainfall only
few hundreds came. At any rate, we’re satisfied that at
least about ten important Datus of the Subanen tribal
communities, they told me, there are about 67 thousand
families.
Anyway, from there, we proceeded to Marawi. From
Marawi we went ______ Camp. This is the consolidated camps
of 11 national forces of the MNLF. Before my arrival there
was an inaugural meeting there where
about 3 thousand armed men were present from
various branches of the Bangsamoro Armed Forces. I stayed
with them for a couple of hours, I also took the occasion
to settle some local problem and they were inviting me to
return back. They said, brother Nur why did you take us by
surprise? I said, I’m surprise myself why you are asking
this question. You don’t know that we are the master of
surprises. You see, the art of war, the art and the
science of war which has been you know the mode of
struggle of our people have been there for centuries. In
fact we taught the world how to conduct struggle of the
weak against the strong. And I said you should not be
surprised because I’m in the habit of taking people by
surprise. This time they said, so we can receive you
properly here, we hope you will come and you have to tell
us so we can receive you properly. And I intend to go back
to the area.
From there, I went to the Muhtalla, the
controversial Muhtalla Forces. They said, there are about
30 thousand members of
the Muhtalla. I don’t know how many of them have
military training, I don’t know. But they told me they
have supposed to be about that number of membership. They
celebrated their anniversary, the Muhtalla, and it was in
that very meeting. In fact my address before the Muhtalla
anniversay was played over the radio time and again in
Cotabato City. And that includes the definition of our
policy specially the current crisis in Congress and the
Senate.
I hope you don’t mind me bringing you through
this long journey that I went and also so that you can
understand why I am not feeling so well. I was exhausted
because it was almost sleepless nights. I had to endure,
thus we could get to the demand of our people. And I came
here just for this purpose. And I intend to go back to
Mindanao although since yesterday, I was informed that
Sen. Roco is inviting me to join him in a committee
hearing about this postponement of the elections, etc.
I have already _______ the government that the less
involvement we have in this proceeding the better for us
because after all the Peace Agreement is very very
precise. It only involved something and we call this
deliberate. In the Peace Agreement, we discuss again and
again the question as to what should MNLF deliver in terms
of peace in Mindanao and what should the government
deliver in terms of the implementation of the Peace
Agreement?
In a seminar in Zamboanga City shortly after the
transfer of power of the previous one to the present one
conducted by the UNDP in collaboration with the SPCPD (the
title is so long even people like me can hardy remember,
well anyway we are used to that we decorate some things to
camouflage), according to the judgment of the
distinguished Gen. Jainal Abidin who preceded our brother
Gen. Usman Basa.
Before he left, he made a statement in the presence of
former Exec. Sec. Alexander
Aguirre who is now the chief adviser to the National
Security Council, he said this in a very touching phrase,
“MNLF has delivered and that’s why we have peace
between the MNLF and the government, very stable and
durable peace, on the other hand, government has not”
that’s why people are still in the _____. What do they
mean by not delivered, because the main obligation and
commitment of the MNLF, the most important was to help
restore peace to Mindanao, it is not a universal peace
covering the entire Mindanao covering everywhere, no, it’s
a limited one. Peace between the MNLF forces on one hand
and the government forces on the other. I have been asking
people to tell me whether or not I’ve been telling the
truth when I say that by and large there is peace between
us and the government. There is no major violation of the
Peace Agreement between us and the government. Even you in
the media, I think you can vouch to the fact that we are
not at war anymore with the government, are we?
Is that not enough contribution? We have been at
war with for nearly 30 years. When I was still out there
with the MNLF in the battlefield nobody was safe except
the innocent one. Even Manila from time to time as a
matter of fact, widows
were not allowed anymore by the government to wear
their black veil. In the schools, from time to time they
have put up the lights here when they are bringing
hundreds of corpse from there. That was when the MNLF was
still at war with the government. Are you not satisfied
that we have put an end to that? You want to see that the
country’s back to that dark ages where Mindanao was
without light despite the fact that we have the Agus 1, 2,
4,5, and 6, Maria Cristina Falls and so on and so forth.
We have so much light that from time to time Mindanao was
enveloped by total darkness because of the consequence of
the war. Americans, so brave, have advised their citizens
not to visit this place so with the Japanese, etc. We were
at the pariah at that time. Are you not satisfied by the
contribution we have made to peace? What else you want?
You want me to produce economic development? Alright ask
your government to implement. I have here a document from
the office of Sen.
Pimentel expressing his worries about our budget. This
budget might be thrown back to the treasury by December if
they are not release. Why are they doing this to us? When
we are supposed to serve as an agents of change, when we
were supposed to be harbinger of change that the ARMM,
SPDA, SPCPD, so on so forth were supposed to serve as
instrument of change but how can you change, how can you
introduce change - - - when they don’t give enough money
to our people. In fact I think yesterday or the other day,
there was a report about the statement of
Sen. Pimentel.
He was complaining and I have here. I will furnish
you a copy of this later on and you will see the
difficulties that we are facing. As I have been saying we
are not magicians here. Because it is the duty of the
government, while it is our duty to help contribute
towards the restoration of peace between the government
and the MNLF, on the other hand, it is the duty of the
government to ensure transformation in the quality of life
of the people there.
Well,
if not for
the assistance of the World Bank and some countries from
Europe, Australia, New Zealand, America, Japan, etc. the
situation could have been much more depressed than it is
now. But _____ that those international organizations
including the OIC- Islamic Development Bank. So therefore,
I would like to ask the media who are present with us that
it is not really our desire to see the situation as ______
as it is in Mindanao. I went to our people just to advise
them not to listen to those who are trying to provoke war
in Mindanao. I told them, that if I have my way, if MNLF
has its way we would like to see that the Peace Agreement
be implemented properly to the letter and spirit so that
we can continue with this peace, a peace, which will be
accompanied by a healthy economic activities or economic
development. Because we have to satisfy our people. We can
not feed the people with peace alone, you have to feed
their stomach, their hungry mouths, they have to go to
school. They have to have new houses because hundreds of
thousands of Muslim houses have been demolished by fire
during the war. You go to Jolo as an example not to say of
the other places in Mindanao. You can still see the scar
of war there. They burned about 90% of our houses there at
one time because they dropped an atom bomb just to flush
us out of the city after we captured the city in 1974.
That’s why we can see the houses are haywire anytime.
How many times since then has Jolo burned again and again
because of the way they put up their houses.
We
have to put up civilize dwelling places for our people. we
are now moving towards the next millennium but until now
our people are still considered among the most primitive
people in the world. Our people are known to be the most
illiterate. And the province that I come from is known to
be the poorest province among 20 members of the club of
poor provinces in the Philippines. Most of these poorest
provinces are from the SZOPAD-SPCPD area. Why - - - okey,
let’s forget about the curse of God, the neglect,
abandonment, discrimination, injustices and so on. Let us
forget about that. Let us turn a new page. But what we can
not understand is, despite the peace, we are still in a
quandary as to what’s going to happen. Just because
there are few loud mouths in Mindanao who want to derail
the peace. I have been saying, I hope that the Senate and
of course the Congress have already somehow followed the
advice of the president but the Senate, we don’t know
yet what’s going to happen. And besides, even in the
House of Congress I understand, after the rejection of the
impurities inserted by some opposition congressmen and
congresswomen in the Committee meeting, after the
rejection while the new bill was on the transit to the
plenary hall, they were able to put back all of these. And
so you still have those impurities, the so-called
confiscatory provisions. You see, there are so many, many
objectionable provisions in this law. I have gone to the
Office of the Executive Secretary, I was very happy before
I went to Mindanao to have received the assurances of H.E.
Pres. Estrada that he will not stop until he will succeed
to get things done in accordance with the letter and
spirit of the Peace Agreement. And we are very happy and
we are very grateful to H.E. And I hope that these people
in the Senate will do anything in their power to remove
those provisions and include provisions that are related
from there. Because according to our agreement the new
Organic Act will reflect only or solely what have been
agreed upon between the parties concerned, GRP on one hand
and MNLF on the other Hand of course with the active
participation of the OIC. Only none of the parties not the
MNLF nor the GRP nor the OIC is entitled to exercise any
prerogative to think here with any provision of the
agreement. Because if you allow anyone of us to _____ with
this Peace Agreement after we signed, what is the used of
entering into a peace agreement in the first place.
So
therefore, it is our wish that the new law will reflect
the totality of the peace agreement, otherwise MNLF
leadership and our people deserve the right to stay away
from that law. We believe, it is a very simple on our part
to accept the confiscation of property. They want to drive
us out from there. While the present Organic Act is very
precise in saying that if they will be defeated in a
referendum then they may (you know I am a teacher, “may”
is not mandatory, it is discretionary) they may sell there
property including their land. But they want, their goal
there in full length to distort just so they could get
this land and
drive us out from there in the spirit of,
to quote some of our brother congressmen “in the
spirit of ethnic cleansing” akin to that which happening
for so long. They have put this into the law to justify
their brutal ejection of our people from that property.
This is very very uncivilized. This is very very
undemocratic. This is very arbitrary. Why do people push
us to the extreme? We are living in our Homeland and
though these loud mouths are people who came from the
Luzon and the Visayas. Why do you persecute us from our
Homeland? I am going to ask this question, what right have
you to persecute our people there, you came from Luzon,
you came from Visayas and now you want to impose your will
on us? Even to create this humilation, this indignities,
this ignominy? We can not accept this, we cannot accept
this. I thought the Filipino people and the Philippine
government was already grateful enough that Misuari and
company had decided to make peace with the government. But
it seems that you are not happy. You don’t want to
accept us into the mainstream of society. When just the
other day, H.E. Pres. Estrada was telling me through Exec.
Sec. Zamora, brother Nur, he said, we would like to assure
you we are not objecting to your meeting with your
brothers in the MILF, we are even encouraging you to do
that. Because ultimately we are confident that after your
series of meeting with them and after they get
enlightenment from your meeting they will join the
mainstream of society. I went there on several occasions
in order to inflict so to speak with the contagion of
peace. Because I wanted to ask for the cooperation of
brother Salamat and his men to protect the peace in
Mindanao, peace between MNLF and MILF in the first place
and peace between the MILF and the government. I have been
saying time and again, once these forces are together,
MNLF, MILF, PNP and AFP. Once we are all together to serve
as the guardians and protectors of that peace, our
children, our women, our old folks and everyone in
Mindanao could be assured of stable, durable and lasting
peace. And even our visitors from outside including
tourists and potential investors, they can come and invest
in our homeland. But unless there is cooperation among
these forces, it is very difficult to see how Mindanao can
have durable and lasting peace. So we are trying and the
government is trying. You want to accept the MILF within
the mainstream of society, MNLF has just decided but you
allow your people to push us out of that. This is the
irony of it. But I hope ultimately, Congress, Senate, the
bicameral conference and the Office of the President will
be able to sort out things in the paramount interest of
peace, justice and freedom for the people of Mindanao.
And
my in speeches before our military forces in various areas
of Mindanao and the islands, I have emphasized to them
time and again. And I hope I won’t be misunderstood. I
told them this, I said, to me I am very optimistic, Pres.
Estrada and his government and the wise people of the
Senate and the Congress will eventually be able to
overcome the obstacles to the full and final
implementation of the Peace Agreement. However I said, I
am putting this closed, however I said in the most
unlikely event because we are human beings, our wishes
could go into wasteful thinking. In the event, in most
unlikely event the things will not go the way we want them
to be. That in the final reckoning some people would
succeed in their attempt to derail the peace of the Peace
Agreement, then it is my wish and the wish our people of
Mindanao and the islands, including of course the rank and
file of the MNLF that I represent. It is our wish that
despite the absence of Peace Agreement between us because
by that action there will be no more peace agreement,
despite the absence of peace agreement it is my wish that
we just co-exist, that we don’t go back to war. Because
we have to protect the lives of our children, our women
and our old folks, the very precious. Besides, every time
there is war it is the people of Mindanao that were caught
in the crossfire. It is my wish just in case, and I hope
you highlight and explain this, I don’t like war
anymore. You remember, many of you, I think some of you
were present when I took my oath of office. What did I say
- - - henceforth, I said “we are now burning our bridge
to war and we are turning a new page, a page that would
inaugurate the era of peace, continuous, sustainable,
enduring and permanent peace.”
Therefore,
I wish everyone will cooperate to sustain that peace. With
or without the Peace Agreement because the peace that we
have obtained
in Mindanao is too precious to be left to the whims and
________ of human beings who have hidden agenda, who are
pondering to their hidden and evil agenda in Mindanao.
This
is our message. Anyway, you are going to ask questions.
Our brothers are ready to answer those questions but
before I leave this podium allow me at this point in time
to convey my most profound thanks and gratitude
to my brothers the congressmen from different
provinces in Mindanao for their heroic
efforts to defend the peace and the Peace
Agreement. I’m sure history will bear me out that their
heroic efforts in congress will never be forgotten by our
people. We thank them and I wish you can join me by giving
them a big applause for that. And together with this also,
our thanks and gratitude to their colleagues from various
parts of the country who join hands with them in ensuring
the success of their effort in congress for the success of
the initiative to get the bill passed despite the
impurities. I thank them also and of course the Office of
the President and everyone concerned. I believe that, that
was a very wise effort on their part. And I hope the
Senate will even be much more vigorous in their initiative
to protect the peace and the Peace Agreement. So that when
the law will be brought before the presence of the
President for his signature then everyone will be happy
about it. And that the law, none of its provisions will
serve as it were a torn in the ______ of peace.
With
this, thank you brothers and sisters and friends from the
media.
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