Duterte orders the police not to arrest MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari so that talks will be continued
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte shows more signs of his promise to provide the Filipino people with peace, as his duty as the president of the country.
On Wednesday, Duterte says he plans to meet a fugitive Muslim rebel wanted over a deadly siege, Nur Misuari, the founding chairman of Moro National Liberation Front in Mindanao, one of the two major Muslim rebel groups based in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines.
The president also promise to ignore an arrest order in an effort to forge peace, where he ordered the authorities not to arrest Misuari.
The administration of former President Benigno Aquino III filed rebellion charges against Misuari for allegedly orchestrating a siege in the southern city of Zamboanga in 2013 that left more than 200 people dead.
The offense of the rebel leader is punishable by at least 30 years in prison, but Misuari was able to avoid arrest by remaining under the protection of his militants on Jolo, Sulu which is also home to the notorious Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang.
Duterte keeps on announcing on his speeches that he will always try to fulfill his promise to let the peace reign in the Philippines and avoid war with the fellow Pinoys.
The president exerts effort to end decades-long insurgencies with Muslim and communist rebels that have claimed more than 150,000 lives, especially in southern Philippines.
The 71-year-old Duterte, said he had a phone conversation with the 77-year-old Misuari on Tuesday night.
“I told him: ‘Nur, I have no intention of detaining you or putting you in the custody of the government. You can simply walk out there, ask any soldier and police to escort you to where we can talk’,” Duterte said.
Duterte said he offered to meet Misuari in the rebel leader’s stronghold in Jolo, Sulu or in the presidential palace in Manila.
But according to Duterte, Misuari said he preferred they meet in Malaysia before representatives of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), while promising a quick peace deal.
“He said in two days we can sign something and end the fighting,” Duterte said.
Misuari is the founder of the MNLF in 1969 to wage a guerrilla war for a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines, where most of the nation’s Muslim minority live, and also present is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.