MNLF official calls for unity of Mindanao Moro leaders

COTABATO CITY (PNA) -– A leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) today urged Mindanao Moro leaders, particularly fellow MNLF to unite and support the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law.”We will reap nothing if we keep disunited,” Uttoh Salem Cutan, an MNLF leader from Southern Mindanao, said.He said the BBL is not for single group only but for all the sectors in Mindanao, including Christians and Indigenous Peoples. Let’s give peace a chance,” Cutan, also former Executive Director of the Southern Philippine Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD), appealed. Rest assured, everybody will be part of the BBL,” Salem said, adding the law will also protect the peace agreement the MNLF signed with the government in 1996.He said the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and 1996 GPH-MNLF Peace Agreement will be incorporated with the BBL.The draft BBL which is now in Congress for deliberation is hoped to be passed into law by June this year.Peace Advocates and various groups from different sectors have been urging the lawmakers to pass the BBL.Cutan, which also currently serves as the vice-chair of the Local Monitoring Team-Sarangani, noted the effort of the government to resolve the Mindanao problem.He urged other Moro leaders to heed to the call of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for the unity of the Bangsamoro.The OIC, an influential pan-Islamic body comprised of 57 member states which facilitated the GPH-MNLF peace process also hosts the Bangsamoro Coordination Forum aimed to bring together the MNLF and MILF to discuss issues and find common ground between the peace pacts they separately signed with the government.On Tuesday, more than 500 constituents of Sarangani and nearby towns joined the peace forum organized by the Office of the Governor through its Sulong Sarangani Program.Government Chief Peace Negotiator Professor Miriam Coronel Ferrer and Senen Bacani, GPH Panel Member, were the resource persons in the peace forum. (PNA)CTB/NYP/EOF/SSC