Binay calls for end to Mindanao violence

Manila: As Filipino-Muslims marked Eid Al Fitr, Vice-President Jejomar Binay urged the government and a formerly separatist Filipino-Muslim rebel group to ink a peace agreement and end decades of war in the southern Philippines.

"It is time to foster unity and peace. I am with you in praying for the best interest of our country. I hope this brings us towards lasting peace and harmony," Binay said.

"Finally [we have to] put an end to years of conflict and bloodshed [in Mindanao]," said Binay who refereed to the on and off peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which began in 1997.

Meanwhile, the MILF asked the Philippine government to give leaders 10 days after Eid to resolve the membership of a renegade commander Umbra Ameril Kato.

Kato said he had left the MILF to continue armed struggle for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the south.

In 2008, Kato launched attacks on civilian villages as the Supreme Court prevented negotiators of the Philippine government and the MILF to sign a proposed land deal in Malaysia, to expand an existing autonomous region for Filipino-Muslims in the south, for the purpose of enhanced self-governance.

Unconstitutional

The Supreme Court said the proposed peace settlement was unconstitutional.

This has hampered President Benigno Aquino from proposing more than what former President Gloria Arroyo had offered to the MILF in 2008.

Talks were resumed in 2010. Aquino also held a secret meeting with MILF chairman in Tokyo.

But talks were on the verge of collapse after the MILF negotiators rejected the Philippine government's proposed political settlement during talks in Malaysia last August.

The MILF had called for the establishment of a Moro substate. It is a new version of the defunct Moro ancestral domain, which originally included the existing autonomous region for Filipino Muslim in the south to be expanded with about 700 Muslim-dominated villages.

The MILF was part of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which had waged a separatist war that killed 150,000 people in the south in the early 70s.

In 1978, the MILF became a faction of the MNLF and waged armed struggle for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the south.

The MILF gave up its secessionist stance when it responded to the government's pro-autonomy peace initiative in 1997.