Hydrocarbon quest complicating peace efforts, MILF says

Manila: Oil and natural gas exploration activities by the government and foreign firms could complicate the peace process in Mindanao, an official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) warned.

Mohammad Ameen, chairperson of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) secretariat, said joint hydrocarbon exploration ventures involving foreign corporations could muddle efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Mindanao.

"We do not want these explorations to complicate the peace process and, more importantly, result in undue deprivation of our people for their rightful share in the natural wealth. I hope the Aquino administration would listen to our people's pleas," Ameen was quoted by the MILF's Luwaran website as saying.

Ameen said the MILF was thus justified in reiterating its call to the government to cease oil and gas exploration activities in Moro areas. He said the issue concerning the Moros' ancestral domain claims in the very areas where hydrocarbon prospecting is under way would first have to be settled.

In particular, he said the MILF wants the government to suspend the bidding and awarding of oil and natural gas contracts in the Sulu Sea and Liguasan Marsh in Central Mindanao. According to him, this is of vital importance to the peace process because it would send a strong message that the current administration is sincere in negotiations.

The MILF official recalled that the MILF peace panel had formally placed a request with the government to suspend oil and gas explorations during the 22nd government-MILF Exploratory Talks in Kuala Lumpur from August 22 to 23. The government's chief negotiator, Dean MarvicLeonen, had at the time assured that he would take up the issue at his end.

Long-time plan

Tests conducted in the Sulu Sea, particularly Tawi-Tawi, have established the presence of huge deposits of oil. Likewise, the Philippine National Oil Corporation has been engaged in natural gas exploration in the Liguasan Marsh area for a long time.

Although the government had for long been keen to exploit available hydrocarbon reserves, it had been unable to do so freely because some of the reserves are located in areas largely controlled by armed Moro groups as well as the MILF.

The MILF wants Moros and indigenous peoples to have their share in any natural wealth extracted from its areas. Despite their immense natural wealth, Maguindanao and other provinces under the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are counted among the most impoverished regions in the country.