August 14, 2012 News: The head of the MILF peace panel secretariat has asked a veteran journalist now writing for Daily Tribune to verify her data before making statement that do not auger well for the search for the elusive peace in Mindanao.

Jun Mantawil, who did not join the latest round of talks in Kuala Lumpur because of a prior overseas commitment, appealed to Ninez Cacho-Olivares of the Daily Tribune not to speculate and instead can request for a meeting with the MILF peace panel to verify certain points in the current negotiation so that she will be guided.

“Speculation is no-no in journalism,” Mantawil counseled her, saying that she owes to the people to write her story objectively and not by delving on imagined scenario that does not jibe with facts.

Olivarez is a staunch supporter of the former but ousted President Joseph Estrada. She also worked as a feature writer and political columnists in various Manila broadsheets such as the Bulletin Today, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Business Day,,  Business World, and was once the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Philippine Post. Today, she is the Publisher and Editor-in-chief of the Daily Tribune, a known critic of the Aquino administration.

In her column, “Frontline” at the Daily Tribune dated August 13, she made this wild speculation: “No doubt, it is highly suspected that while a memorandum of agreement with the MILF may be forged, completely eliminating the word substate, there is certain to be side agreements that will not be made public as such would not pass the same constitutional muster.”

“Can you imagine a veteran journalist for 20 years can make this statement purely on the basis of sheer fantasy and imagination?” Mantawil asked.

Mantawil asked: “Does Olivares understand the meaning of substate, granting that the word is used or was used in MILF or government-MILF document, granting that it was or is being used?

“Is not the word clearly meant that what the MILF pushes through the negotiating table is real autonomy and not the bogus autonomy that is in the so-called Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)?” Mantawil elaborated.

Olivares had also taken a swipe at President Aquino when she said these words: “But perhaps Noynoy, who now controls the Supreme Court and who will soon have a lackey of a chief justice, may just close its eyes to the many constitutional violations committed by their master in Malacañang.”

Mantawil reiterated the long-held MILF view that the mass media, also known as the Fourth Estate, is the fourth most powerful institution that could help make or unmake any peace deal in Mindanao.

The other three institutions are the Philippine State, the rich, elites, or “capitalists”, and the Catholic Church and all others are mere components or any of these institutions which do not make or influence decision-making in this country.

However, Mantawil said that the Philippine state, taken collectively, is the single most powerful entity that cannot be equaled by the other institutions even if they stand together.