AQUINO-ROXAS TO PURSUE MINDANAO PEACE TALKS

An Aquino-Roxas administration is committed to securing peace through negotiations with Moro rebels in Mindanao to ensure a progressive future for the southern Philippines.

Liberal Party vice-presidential bet Roxas said a President Benigno S. Aquino III and a Vice-President Roxas will adopt a strategy of transparent, comprehensive and open-minded consultation with all stakeholders to attain an effective and permanent solution to the long-decade problems in Southern Philippines.

He said Aquino first assignment is to focus on the revival of stalled peace negotiations and not to engage in any secret arrangement similar to what the present administration did on the failed Memorandum on Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) arrangement.

"How can we sign a peace pact if we don't know the content and objective of the agreement? We can't allow that. All we need is a free and transparent process of consultation with all stakeholders, especially with the people of Mindanao," Roxas said.

He emphasized that the most important is to unify and not to divide the country and jeopardize the constitution, as what the MOA-AD signed by the Arroyo Administration and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front almost did had it not been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

"We are all for peace. But we are against to an effort to divide the nation and destroy our sovereignty," Roxas stressed pointing out the failed MOA-AD of Arroyo administration that will create division in Mindanao region.