By NONOY E LACSON
February 14, 2010, 3:00pm
ZAMBOANGA CITY – Lawyer Tomas Cabili has resigned from the government peace panel effective February 8, the second member of the panel to resign in less than two months.
Cabili reasoned that the policy of the peace panel on “confidentiality or secrecy” in the ongoing renewed peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has caused his resignation.
Cabili was the Christian representative in the peace panel, in lieu of Msgr. Jemar Vera Cruz who declined the post when offered to him early last year.
Cabili, in a letter to President Arroyo dated February 8, said numerous policy matters affecting the peace process, most glaring of which is the disparity between the panel chair’s policy of confidentiality or secrecy vis-à-vis and of his legal point of view.
“I suffered in silence from being marginalized for adhering to my independent view and remaining true to the quest for genuine sustainable peace.
Transparency is the way forward to a constitutionally valid peace agreement,” Cabili said in his two-page letter. The letter was also copy furnished to Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat.
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/243467/govt-peace-panel-member-resigns
