By Jaspearl Tan

Despite former president Rodrigo Duterte’s call for a separate Mindanao, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Chief Minister Murad Ebrahim said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will stick to its peace agreement.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have already signed an agreement with the Philippine government,” Ebrahim said at the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) Prospects Forum.

“So we stick to our position that now, since we have signed an agreement already with the government, we will continue to lobby that the entire provision of the peace agreement will be fully implemented,” he added.

Ebrahim said that under the third phase of the normalization track, half of the 40,000 combatants have not been decommissioned and 4,000 firearms have not yet been surrendered.

“About 20,000 of our combatants have already been decommissioned. And then, for the firearms, about half of the 7,000 is already decommissioned. Meaning about 3,000 plus,” Ebrahim said.

He said that they will do their best to finish decommissioning before the 2025 midterm elections. DMS