(February 16-22)

After more than a year of absence, the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) will be back. They will probably start their formal tour of duty in March this year. The reconnaissance team for the IMT-5 has already arrived in Manila on February 15. After paying courtesy calls to several Filipino high officials in Manila, they will proceed to Mindanao on the 17th of this month. They will also pay courtesy call to the MILF leadership in Darapanan, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, and then they would tour IMT teamsites in Cotabato City, Iligan City, and Zamboanga City. After this mission is finished and the team returns to Kuala Lumpur, the IMT-5 is expected to arrive before the end of this month.

The last IMT (IMT-4) went back to Kuala Lumpur on November 30, 2008. Their mandate was not renewed due to lack of progress in the talks. However, the other contingents from Libya, Brunei, and Japan stayed behind waiting for fresh mandate, which was not forthcoming. Without a mandate, they can stay but has no authority to discharge their duties. And this mandate can only come from the Parties (GRP and MILF) --- and with the concurrence of the contributing states.

Salamat Datang! Welcome Brig. Gen. Datuk Baharom Bin Hamza, the IMT-5 Head of Mission, and Staff! With all our hearts, we salute you! Like your predecessors, we are sure you are more than equal to your new task.

The coming in of the IMT-5 is significant in many ways. First, as a sign of sincere commitment to the GRP-MILF Peace Talks, Malaysia has managed to make the decision to send its contingent back, despite the lack of substantial progress in the talks. Second, IMT-5’s fielding in Mindanao comes at a time when the talks had almost hit a snag after serious divergence in the drafts of the Philippine government and the MILF on the proposed comprehensive compact. And third, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will surely leave office on June 30 without her promised legacy of peace in Mindanao.

Malaysia’s facilitation of the talks has been almost nine years already, without the peace settlement in sight. Kuala Lumpur has been spending so much money, efforts, and other resources, in addition to putting its goodwill and clout at stake. But it seems the Philippine government is not reciprocating commensurately. Its failure to honor and sign the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) in Kuala Lumpur on August 5, 2008 is surely insulting to the Malaysian government. To add insult to injury, Malaysia, instead of getting accolades and praises for helping a neighboring country out of misery of decades of fighting in Mindanao is accused of partiality and siding with the MILF. For Heaven’s sake, truth is that none of the agreements signed by the Parties since 2001 has been clinched except through hard bargaining across the negotiating table. Malaysia cannot arm-twist the Philippine government. It is just extending its good offices, after Arroyo in 2001 travelled all the way to Kuala Lumpur to request then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed to facilitate the resumption of the GRP-MILF Peace Talks after it collapsed due to the all-out war waged by President Joseph Estrada against the MILF.