MANILA, 16 December — Indonesian Foreign Minister Nur Hassan Wirajuda, representing the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) will visit the Philippines next week over the case of detained renegade Moro leader Nur Misuari, Philippine officials said yesterday.

Vice President and Foreign Secretary Teofisto Guingona said Wirajuda would visit on Dec. 20 as chairman of the OIC’s Committee of Eight which is monitoring the 1996 peace accord between the government and Misuari’s former Muslim separatist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

He is due to meet with President Gloria Arroyo on the case of Misuari, who is currently detained in Malaysia after entering that country illegally while fleeing a failed revolt he allegedly led in Mindanao.

Malaysia has Misuari must be repatriated before Dec. 24 or he will be allowed to go free.

In her weekly radio address earlier, Arroyo said she considered Misuari a threat to national security and that he would have to face rebellion charges at home.

However, she said the government was still open to “reconciliation” with Misuari’s armed followers in this country who were left behind by their leader.

Misuari had openly declared that he was resuming the armed struggle last month when the government rejected his demand not to hold elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, of which he was the governor.

Even after his arrest in Malaysia, his followers seized more than 100 hostages in the southern city of Zamboanga in late-November to get safe passage out of the city and are now negotiating to lay down their arms. Other armed followers of Misuari continued to harass government positions in Jolo, attacking a town hall earlier this week.

Court order

In Cotabato City, the seat of the ARMM government, a local court yesterday stopped Misuari rival Parouk Hussin from assuming his seat as regional governor.

Judge Esmael Bagundang said the case questioning Hussin’s assumption into office has legal basis for the court “to cease and desist” him from performing his function as governor.

The petition was filed by former Regional Legislative Assembly Speaker Alvarez Isnaji, who took over as caretaker when Misuari was suspended for leading a failed revolt in Jolo last month.

Isnaji had been deemed resigned when he filed his candidacy for the governorship in the Nov. 26 election.

But when the Commission on Election declared Hussin as the winner, with former Lanao del Sur Gov. Majid Mutilan as vice governor, Isnaji refused to vacate the seat.

Through his lawyer, Isnaji asked the court to issue stop Hussin from taking over, claiming that under the law that created the expanded ARMM, the governor-elect can only assume office on Sept. 30, 2002.

“Considering the gravity of the allegations,” Bagundang said he also included in the temporary restraining order the recall of all orders issued by Hussin, who claimed to have officially assumed as elected ARMM governor on Dec. 4, the day he took his oath of office before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang.

The same order also instructed the Land Bank of the Philippines, Philippine National Bank, Development Bank of the Philippines and the Al-Amanah Islamic Bank of the Philippines to freeze all ARMM accounts until such time when the order is lifted.

Hussin was given five days to submit his counter-affidavit so the case could be heard at 2 p.m. on Dec. 18.

Hussin, who considered the civil case against him as “anomalous,” said his lawyers are preparing for the legal battle.

He said the case was the handiwork of people with “vested interest” and “out to create unnecessary trouble.”

He reiterated his earlier commitment to introduce change and reform for the betterment of the ARMM constituents.

Legal experts say, however, that the case filed by Isnaji is weak and his argument fatally flawed.

Isnaji’s argument is that since the ARMM’s regular election is scheduled every three years, Misuari’s expires only on Sept. 2002.

But legal luminaries note that the term of Misuari, who was elected ARMM governor in September 1996, had long expired in 1999. Congress, however, had to postpone the elections twice due to Misuari’s objections.