Press Release
December 30, 2007

FEDERALISM PROPOSAL THE ONLY WAY TO BREAK LONG DEADLOCK IN PEACE TALKS -- PIMENTEL

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the government is moving in the right direction by positively responding to the proposal of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for the adoption of a federal system to break the protracted deadlock in the peace negotiation.

Pimentel warned that the peace talks should not be derailed and delayed any longer in view of the increasing restiveness among the ranks of Muslim rebels which may lead to the revival of the separatist war.

He lamented that failure to forge a final peace agreement between the government and MILF, after more than 10 years of negotiation, has deprived the people in Muslim Mindanao of opportunities for economic and social upliftment, including an initial $30 million development aid from the United States which the Bush administration has offered as early 2003.

"As we have been saying for a long, long time, the federal system is just bout the only feasible solution to the centuries-old rebellion in Mindanao," Pimentel said.

The leadership of the MILF has openly called for the establishment of a BangsaMoro federal state in the wake of the cancellation of the December 2007 peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, due to the reported Malacañang decision to water down a draft agreement on the ancestral domain issue earlier worked out by government and MILF negotiators.

Subsequently Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced that the government is prepared to discuss the federalism proposal when the peace talks resume.

Pimentel said the creation of the BangsaMoro Federal state will serve as a forerunner to the federalization of the entire Philippines, which can be implemented by amending the 1987 Constitution.

He said that while he is strongly pushing for Charter Change to pave the way for the setting up of a federal system of government, such worthy objective may turn sour if the ruling party will exploit the proposal to pursue their hidden agenda of perpetuating themselves in power.

"If even the leadership of the MILF has now come out in favor of the adoption of the federal system, it may be time to push it forward with the caveat that the amendment of the Constitution to accommodate the federal system must not be used as a subterfuge for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's prolonged stay power and that of her underlings," Pimentel said.

"The adoption of the federal system must be totally rid of partisan considerations. Otherwise, there will be hell for the next generations of our countrymen and women."

Pimentel said a federal system setup will put an end to the recurrent Muslim secessionist conflict because it will not only give the people in Muslim Mindanao a measure of self-rule but will also enable them to assert and preserve their cultural identity, specially their Islamic faith and way of life.

He said that the creation of a BangsaMoro Federal State is the collective wish of the Muslims in Mindanao which was conveyed to him through conversations he had with practically all the known Muslim rebel leaders, their ulamas, and their business, academic and youth leaders.

"To a man, they prefer the establishment of a BangsaMoro Federal State over the autonomous region. Otherwise, the threat of secession still hangs in the air as the ultimate way of out of the Moros of the predicament they find themselves in."

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