Philippines, Muslim rebels sign historic peace pact

Philippine government peace negotiator Marvic Leonen, front right, and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, front left, exchange signed documents of a framework agreement for peace at a ceremony at the Malacanang Palace in Manila yesterday as Malaysian peace broker Dato Tengko Abdul Ghafar, centre front, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief Murad Ebrahim, back left, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, standing second left, Philippine President Benigno Aquino, standing second right, and peace negotiator Teresita Deles look on. Photo: AFP

Muslim rebels waging a four-decade insurgency in the Philippines signed a historic pact with the government yesterday to end the conflict, but both sides warned the road to peace had only just begun.
President Benigno Aquino and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief Murad Ebrahim witnessed the signing of the accord, which aims for a final peace pact by 2016, in a ceremony at the presidential palace in Manila.
"I come in peace and to forge a partnership of peace on the basis of the framework agreement between the MILF and the Philippine government," Ebrahim said in a speech during the ceremony.
Aquino, who has driven the process since assuming office in 2010, also hailed the agreement as a chance to "finally achieve genuine, lasting peace".
Ebrahim became the first MILF chief to visit the presidential palace, signifying the optimism from both sides about finally ending a conflict that has claimed 150,000 lives and the priority Aquino has put on achieving peace.
Under the plan, the 12,000-strong MILF would give up its quest for an independent homeland in the southern region of Mindanao in return for significant power and wealth-sharing in a new autonomous region there.
However the MILF's leadership, the government and independent observers have all warned the path towards peace remains littered with obstacles, and that yesterday's signing does not guarantee an end to the conflict.
Muslim rebel groups have been fighting since the 1970s for full independence or autonomy in Mindanao, which they consider their ancestral homeland from before Spanish Christian colonisation of the country began in the 1500s.
The estimated four to nine million Muslims are now a minority in Mindanao after years of Catholic immigration, but they remain a majority in some areas. Muslims would be a majority in the planned new autonomous region.
The conflict has left huge areas of Mindanao, a resource-rich and fertile farming region covering the southern third of the Philippines, in deep poverty.
The planned new autonomous region would replace the old one, covering much of the same area but with more powers for self-rule.
The new autonomous region would have its own parliament and ability to tax its residents, while Islamic Shariah law would apply to Muslims in civil cases
The nation's parliament, dominated by Catholics, will have to approve the laws of the new autonomous region.
The two sides have set 2016 as a deadline because that is when Aquino is required by the constitution to stand down after serving a single six-year term.