04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly xxx Jaafar said the MILF considers the MOA binding because its draft agreement was "initialed" last July 27 in Kuala Lumpur by Rodolfo Garcia, government chief negotiator; Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief negotiator; Hermogenes Esperon, presidential adviser on the peace process, and Datuk Othman bin Abdulrazak, chief peace facilitator for the Malaysian government. "Our position is that after initialing, both parties initialed the MOA, that is a signing," Jaafar said. Jaafar said the scheduled signing yesterday in Kuala Lumpur was merely "ceremonial and a formality, in a way to announce to all throughout the world that a memorandum of agreement has been signed but actually the signing, actual signing was done." "So it's a done deal as far as the MILF is concerned," he said. Jaafar said the MILF and the government set a ceremonial signing of the MOA "because this is a very important document." "We want to be proud of it we want to announce it throughout the world that there is a memorandum of agreement between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government of the Republic of the Philippines." He said the MILF expects the government to abide by the MOA "because this agreement is binding on both parties."[11] It appears that the persons who initialed the MOA-AD were Philippine Presidential Peace Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Philippine government peace negotiator Rodolfo Garcia, MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, and Datuk Othman bin Abdulrazak, chief peace facilitator of the Malaysian government.[12] The MILF is not a party to these petitions, and thus its position that the MOA-AD was in fact already signed through the initials affixed by representatives of the Philippine and Malaysian governments and the MILF has not been formally presented for the Court for adjudication. In an earlier submission to the Court, I discussed the position of the MILF from the following perspective: There is the danger that if the petitions were dismissed for mootness without additional comment, it will be advocated by persons so interested as to make the argument that the intrinsic validity of the MOA-AD provisions has been tacitly affirmed by the Court. Moreover, the unqualified dismissal of the petitions for mootness will not preclude the MILF from presenting the claim that the MOA-AD has indeed already been signed and is therefore binding on the Philippine government. These concerns would especially be critical if either argument is later presented before an international tribunal, that would look to the present ruling of this Court as the main authority on the status of the MOA-AD under Philippine internal law. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/47263 142/203