OPINION: Official Statement of ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman on MILF weapons decommissioning

WE WELCOME the President, Benigno S. Aquino III to Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao. This visit, the president’s third during his term, is perhaps the most historic.

Today, we will witness the Moro Islamic Liberation Front symbolically lay down their arms to show their commitment to establishing a lasting peace in Mindanao. This is the act of peace, the show of sincerity in the peace process, that we have all been waiting for from the MILF and the government.Beginning today, the MILF will beat swords to ploughshares as soldiers will begin to bring life to the land instead of taking from it. Today, mothers will begin to send their children to school again without fear, and welcome them home happily. Today, children will start learning to be children, and hope never to learn about war again.

We silence the guns today and our voices will drown the songs of war; our voice will echo the calls for peace. We have been doing so for the past 17 years, culminating in a document we now know as the Bangsamoro Basic Law. This Law, the fruit of many legal minds, both Moro and non-Moro, will be the rock on which lasting peace and eventual economic progress in Mindanao can be built.

The BBL has suffered much under the hands of those who have studied it, as well as those who have not, but it has been passed by the House Ad Hoc Committee, though it is now going through what might be called an obstacle race in the Senate. We pray that this race will soon end and the BBL be hailed as victorious.

The peace panel has done its part. The Bangsamoro will continue to do what is necessary, this decommissioning of arms not the least, in order to make our dream of lasting peace a reality. We hope that the President, who has been its champion since its inception, will do everything that is possible for the BBL to come to its fruition. (Bureau of Public Information)