President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. should appoint a new Chairman for the Government Peace Implementing Panels which is the MILF's constituted counterpart in the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. The position has been without a permanent Chair since the reported resignation of General Cesar B. Yano (Ret).  This is not an administrative vacancy. It is a structural rupture at the heart of the peace process. The MILF finds itself without a dialogue partner. The CAB, in practical terms, is in a state of suspension.

A Peace Architecture Without a Counterpart

The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro was not a unilateral declaration. It is a negotiated compact between two parties — the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front — each bound by its provisions and each represented by implementing panels vested with the authority of their respective principals. This architecture was deliberate. It was designed to ensure that implementation would proceed through structured, accountable, and authoritative dialogue between equals.

The departure of General Yano (?) has left the GPH side of this architecture vacant. The MILF Peace Implementing Panel stands ready. The GPH Peace Implementing Panel does not have a full-fledged Chair. Without a Chair carrying the clear mandate of the President, there is no interlocutor. There is no mechanism for resolving implementation disputes. There is no credible table at which the two parties can meet.

The MILF does not raise this matter as a complaint. It raises it as a matter of structural necessity. The peace process cannot function as designed when one of its two implementing parties is without leadership.

The Confusion with OPAPRU

The MILF must also raise a concern that has grown more pressing with each passing month: the role of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and Reconciliation and Unity — OPAPRU — in the CAB implementation.

OPAPRU, under whatever name it has carried across successive administrations, has an important role in the broader architecture of peace governance. It is not, however, the GPH Peace Implementing Panel. These are distinct bodies with distinct mandates. The Implementing Panel is the designated negotiating and implementing counterpart of the MILF under the CAB. OPAPRU is an executive office with a broader peace and reconciliation mandate.

The conflation of these two bodies — or the effective substitution of OPAPRU for the Implementing Panel in matters of CAB implementation — introduces ambiguity where the agreement requires clarity. It obscures accountability. It creates confusion about which office speaks with authority on matters arising from the CAB. And it signals, whether intended or not, a diminishment of the CAB's own implementing structure.

We call on the government to formally and publicly clarify the respective roles of OPAPRU and the GPH Peace Implementing Panel. This clarification is not a bureaucratic nicety. It is a prerequisite for coherent implementation.

What Is at Stake

The MILF suspended the fourth phase of combatant decommissioning in July 2025, citing the government's non-compliance and lack of commensurate movement with its normalization obligations. That decision was not made lightly. It reflected the MILF's assessment that the commitments made under the CAB were not being honoured at the required pace or with the required seriousness.

That situation has not been resolved. And it cannot be resolved without a properly constituted and empowered GPH interlocutor. The absence of a Panel Chair does not merely delay dialogue — it makes dialogue impossible. Every day that passes without a counterpart is a day in which the outstanding normalization commitments remain unaddressed, in which the decommissioned combatants remain without the socioeconomic support they were promised, and in which the credibility of the peace process is further eroded.

The international community — the ICG, the TPMT, the development partners, the multilateral institutions that have invested in the Bangsamoro peace process — should understand clearly: the peace process is in limbo, not because of the MILF, but because the government has yet to ensure that its own implementing structure is functional.

The Call and Request

Because of the seriousness of the situation, the government should take the following requests for immediate actions:

First, appoint a permanent Chair of the GPH Peace Implementing Panel — an individual of stature, carrying an unambiguous presidential mandate, and prepared to engage the MILF on the full range of CAB implementation matters.

Second, clarify through an official issuance the distinct roles of OPAPRU and the GPH Peace Implementing Panel, and affirm that CAB implementation will proceed through the Panel as the agreement requires.

The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro was signed in blood and trust. Its implementation demands the same seriousness with which it was negotiated. The MILF remains committed to the peace process. The question before the President is whether the Government of the Philippines is equally committed — not in statements, but in the appointment of a Chair who can sit across the table and honour what was agreed.

History will not judge this process by the eloquence of its commitments. It will judge it by whether those commitments were kept.