Difference between revisions of "Sultan Kudarat, Philippines"

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 ==[[Sultan Kudarat News]]==
-'''Archdiocesan seminary to hold investiture ceremony'''
+'''Frustration grows for Muslim rebels'''
-*Source: http://www.mindanaocross.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2888:archdiocesan-seminary-to-hold-investiture-ceremony&catid=59:church&Itemid=110
+*Source: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/336511/frustration-grows-muslim-rebels
-*September 24, 2011
+*October 3, 2011, 7:48pm
-:By Sandra U. Sandialan and Cristina U. Codilla
+:By KARL MALAKUNAS
-TEN Diocesan seminarian-students will take their investiture on September 24, 2011 at the Archdiocesan Seminary in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.
+SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines (AFP) — Ageing Muslim rebel leaders in the southern Philippines are voicing growing frustration that efforts to end one of Asia’s longest and deadliest insurgencies have hit a diplomatic brick wall.
-The activity is one of the highlights of the Family Day, a once a year weekend celebration of the Archdiocesan seminary, to recognize their third year seminarians in the next step of their life towards their dream to become priests.
+Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Chairman Murad Ebrahim expressed hope after a meeting with Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III in August that peace talks were on a “fast-track” and a final deal was within sight.
-According to the rector of the Archdiocesan Seminary, Fr. Ben Torreto, they are the third year archdiocesan seminarian-students who passed their subjects and other requirements in school and the seminary.
+But negotiations stalled soon after when the government offered its roadmap for peace, a document Murad called an “exercise in futility” and said could lead to reigniting a conflict that has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives.
-Seven of them come from South Cotabato: Daryll Dhan Bibao, James Adrian Carcillar, and Ben Ryan Penuela of Sta. Catalina de Alexandria Parish in Dukay, Esperanza; Moises Daing, Jr., Danillo Diaz, and Thomas Francisco Paladin of Nuestra Sra. dela Candelaria Parish in Tacurong City; and Kevin Magbanua of San Carlos Borromeo Parish in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat.
+“There is an impression that it is even heaven and earth,” Murad told reporters recently at the MILF’s Camp Darapanan headquarters in Sultan Kudarat, in reference to the two sides’ positions.
-The other two are from North Cotabato and one from Maguindanao. They are Gerald Uy and Kent Warren Zamora of San Blas Parish in Pigcawayan, Cotabato and Folrey Michael Magno of San Isidro Labrador Parish in Nuro, Upi, Maguindanao.
+Murad insisted there would be no more direct talks between two sides’ peace panels until the government produced a more realistic and workable blueprint. However the government has rejected the MILF’s demand.
-In the ceremony, the 10 seminarians will wear their “sutana” which symbolizes that they are expected to live virtuous life with pure motivation and intention as archdiocesan seminarians, Fr. Torreto said.
+The stalemate is the latest setback to 10 years of talks that some observers say are inevitably doomed because the national government will not be able to meet the MILF’s core requirement of an autonomous substate in the south.
-The 37 archdiocesan seminarians, their family and friends, the formators, and some Notre Dame University professors will be part of the program. The Serra Club has also been invited as guest to the activity.
+There are roughly four million Muslims in Mindanao, an area they see as their ancestral homeland dating back to Islamic sultanates established long before Spanish Christians arrived in the 1500s.
-Archdiocesan Bishop Collin Bagaforo will preside the ceremony.
+Mindanao is among the most fertile and resource-rich areas in the Philippines, but it is also one of the country’s poorest and undeveloped, a legacy of the conflict that began four decades ago.
+Muslims, known as Bangsamoro, are now a minority in Mindanao but insist they should be allowed to largely govern the region themselves and control its potential riches.
+“We feel we are colonized,” Murad said.
+The MILF, the largest Muslim rebel group with about 12,000 soldiers, has for the past decade sought to negotiate a settlement rather than achieve its aims through armed insurgency, which peaked in the 1970s when an all-out war raged.
+However negotiations have gone virtually nowhere since 2008 when the Supreme Court blocked a peace deal that would have opened the door to an autonomous Muslim substate, ruling it was “unconstitutional”.
+President Aquino, who came to power last year, promised to reinvigorate the peace process and invested much personal capital by meeting Murad in August.
+Their encounter in Japan was the first ever face-to-face talks between a sitting Philippine president and MILF leader.
+However the optimism within the MILF faded after the government put forward its peace plan a few weeks later with the explicit condition that it will only work within the Constitution, effectively ruling out a substate.
+Kato expelled
+Meanwhile, Ustadhz Ameril Umra Kato was officially and finally dropped from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Ustadhz Ameril Umra Kato last September 22.
+This was confirmed Monday by Von Al-Haq, spokesman for military affairs of the MILF, saying Kato and his followers are now out of the group's fold.
+However, he said the MILF Central Committee chaired by Al-Haji Murad Ebrahim still left the door open for the return of the former commander of the MILF. (With a report from Edd K. Usman)
 ==Photo Gallery of Sultan Kudarat, Philippines==