Team PNoy senatorial bets to push PNoy’s peace policy in Mindanao, says Drilon

MANILA, February 10, 2013-Team PNoy campaign manager, Senator Franklin M. Drilon on Sunday stressed that it is vital for the President Aquino to have a majority in Congress for the remainder of his term in order not to undermine his ongoing efforts to bring an enduring peace in Mindanao.

Drilon said the President needs his team in Congress to push, as a pillar of his peace-making initiative, the creation of a Bangsamoro Republic that would take the place of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.  The Bangsamoro Republic is one of the milestones in the framework agreement of the ongoing peace negotiation between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“If the electorate did not vote for the team of the President in the coming elections, the creation of a new basic law that will establish the Bangsamoro Republic may be put in peril because the President would have no allies to  fight for this in the next Congress,” said Drilon.

“Kaya kung hindi maniniwala ang tao sa kanya at hindi dadalin ang mga kandidato na kaniyang ineendorso, there’s a clear signal from the electorate na hindi payag ang taumbayan sa konsepto ng framework agreement,” he said.

That is why, Drilon said, it is important that the candidates the President has handpicked,for Team PNoy will make it to the Senate so they could help the President advance the necessary reforms, especially his policy in establishing peace and development in Mindanao.

Fighting ignited by Muslim sentiment for a homeland has rocked Mindanao for more than four decades, claiming thousands of lives and setting back economic and social development in the resource-rich island, the country's second largest.

Drilon said an enduring peace in Mindanao is so important to the President he is going to make an unprecedented visit to the Muslim stronghold in Sultan Kudarat.   

“That is also why the President is spending his political capital for his candidates," Drilon said,."Kaya ngayon, kung hindi mailuklok ang kaniyang mga inendorsosa Kongreso, hindi mabubuo yung bagong basic law.”