Reelected Moro National Liberation Front Central Committee Chairman Muslimin Sema. (Photo from Sema FB page)
COTABATO CITY – Reelected Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Central Committee (CC) chair Muslimin Sema vowed to continue working with his counterparts to achieve peace in the Bangsamoro areas of Mindanao.
Sema was reelected and positioned anew as chair of the MNLF–CC, one of the two factions of the MNLF, after his predecessor, Yusoph Jikiri, died of cancer last month.
The other faction of the MNLF is headed by Prof. Nur Misuari, its founding chair. Sema is a Maguindanaon, while Jikiri, like Misuari, was a Tausug.
The MNLF-CC meeting was held on Sunday at a hotel in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.
"We assure of our dedication to work, along with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, in the spirit of convergence and collaboration, in establishing a genuine, lasting peace in the Bangsamoro homeland,” Sema said in a statement Monday.
Sema played major roles, along with Misuari, in the peace negotiation with the Philippine government that led to the signing of the 1996 GPH-MNLF peace accord.
Sema, who also served as Cotabato City mayor for nine years, said his group will continue to support all the peace initiatives of Malacañang in the Southern Philippines.
During Sunday’s election, his younger brother Romeo Sema, labor minister of the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), was also elected as MNLF-CC’s vice chairman for political affairs. (PNA)
