Wednesday, October 03, 2007 MILF, gov't panels secretly meet in KL By Ben O. Tesiorna
THE Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) secretly met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on September 25 and 26 in their effort to break the yearlong impasse on the peace negotiations.
But the two-day meeting failed to arrive at a schedule for the 14th Philippine-MILF exploratory talks. The two panels failed to resolve the contentious issue on territory during the latest meeting.
In a report by Luwaran.com, a member of the MILF delegation however said the meeting was not a total failure as there were "outstanding achievements" made. The delegate however refused to divulge these achievements as they were said to have been made during an executive session.
The government peace delegation was headed by Secretary Rodolfo Garcia. He was accompanied by Atty. Leah Armamento and Mark Ryan Sullivan. The MILF group was led by Mohagher Iqbal and was joined in by Atty. Michael Mastura, Maulana Bobby Alonto, and Mike Pasigan.
Former Philippine chief peace negotiator Secretary Silvestre Afable Jr. also joined the government delegation, as senior adviser to the Philippine peace panel.
The meeting was said to be in the nature of question-and-answer allowing any of the parties to ask questions and the other to reply until a sort of leveling off or consensus is arrived at.
On the last hours of the meeting, the parties resumed in executive session to allow them to speak freely and make preliminary decisions that would be confirmed during the exploratory talks.
