COTABATO CITY, 12 Julye 2003 — An official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said yesterday the group may opt to negotiate with the next administration should President Arroyo’s government continue to delay the peace talks.

Eid Kabalu, spokesman of the separatist group, said in an interview with radio DXMS in Cotabato yesterday that some of their leaders were getting impatient with the government’s turtle-paced compliance with the so-called “confidence’building measures” agreed upon by the two sides in Kuala Lumpur on June 20.

“Since the next presidential election is just 10 months away and President Arroyo has made known her intention not to seek a new mandate, we might as well wait for that new administration,” Kabalu said.

Kabalu said the position was not the official stand of the MILF, “but the idea is being floated within the MILF circle.”

Kabalu cited the lifting of warrant of arrest against MILF officials and the pull out of troops from Buliok Complex in Pikit and Pagalungan in Cotabato and Maguindanao, respectively. “What the AFP have done so far was the turn over of the Islamic Center to a local resident in a over publicized ceremony on July 4, 2003,” Kabalu noted.

“It become obvious that the government is making a lot of excuses, for instance while administration announce its agreement on the lifting of the same, but they wanted the MILF to do the initiative by going to court and ask for its lifting, so that the talks could start immediately,” he added.

Kabalu took offense at Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople’s charge that the MILF was delaying the resumption of the talks. Ople’s had earlier said the MILF should make things easier by making representations in court and urging the withdrawal of criminal charges against its officials.

According to Kabalu, the MILF will not go to court because doing so would submission to the authority of the court.

He said submitting to the authority of a Philippine court would nullify the MILF’s official stand that it does not recognize the Philippine constitution.“Moreover, there was a precedence of a case similar in nature and the same was lifted through the initiative of the Department of Justice, without any participation by the MILF, it was done before, I don’t see any reason why it could not be done today,” he added.