September 9, 2012 News: The peace panels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Government of the Philippines (GPH) have claimed substantive gains in the recently concluded 31st GPH, MILF Exploratory Talks in Kuala Lumpur.

In a Joint Statement, the MILF and GPH panels said the 31st round of Exploratory Talks between the Negotiating Panels of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) successfully ended today in Kuala Lumpur.  The Panels reached substantive gains in the negotiations held from September 5 to 8, 2012 under the facilitation of Malaysia.

They said the four-day meeting which was marked with mutual trust, sincerity and cordiality, successfully worked towards the crafting of a framework agreement. The respective Technical Working Groups (TWGs) continued their discussions, reached consensus on many issues and submitted preliminary reports which were duly noted by the Panels.

Mohagher Iqbal, chair of the MILF peace panel, said the talks was tough, serious and exhaustive but marked with mutual trust, sincerity and cordiality to address  sensitive issues at hand for a common resolve.

He said both Parties were able to settle many unresolved issues during the previous peace talks allowing their respective TWGs to work fast and forward to meet an unofficial timelines in the peace negotiation.

“We have adopted several approaches ranging from plenary, executive and one-on-one panel meetings to technical working groups in our desire to achieve more consensus points,” Iqbal told Luwaran while expressing that more “elephants” are still in the room that hinder the signing of a framework agreement for the establishment of a new political entity in place of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

“Elephants”, in negotiation parlance, refer to the huge issues that are still very controversial and contentious and are not yet settled by the parties. The parties, however, agreed not to call these elephants or contentious issues as such but simply refer to them as “unresolved” issues; meaning, they are manageable and can be resolved soon.

Iqbal, in a statement, has warned of the surfacing of various spoilers and pressure groups while he urged both sides to look at and examine their implications to the peace process, adding for the urgent need to come up a common resolve to take the challenge head-on.

The Parties and their respective TWGs will meet again before the end of September 2012 to discuss unresolved issues.