World Bulletin / News Desk

 The Philippines’ government and its one-time largest Muslim rebel group have formed a task force to oversee the decommissioning of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members and their return to civilian life.

The government’s chief negotiator said in a statement Tuesday that the new body is part of continuing efforts to move forward with a peace deal signed last year and the passage of a law establishing an autonomous Bangsamoro region in the south.

Decommissioning is among the raft of measures agreed upon in the Comprehensive Agreement -- signed by the MILF and the government on March 27, 2014 -- which brings to a close 17 years of negotiations and ends a decades-old armed conflict on Mindanao island, while granting Muslim areas greater political autonomy.

"Decommissioning is a delicate and difficult component of any peace settlement. It must be done effectively and sensitively,” Prof. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said Tuesday.

“It is an affirmative support to the normalization process and will contribute to advancing collective security in the future Bangsamoro region and the country as a whole."

The MILF and the government will each have three members on the task force, which will be in service until an exit agreement is inked once all aspects of the 2014 deal have been realized.

Under the deal, the MILF will turn over firearms to a third party, and decommission its armed wing - the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces.

In return, a regional police force will be established, the Philippines army will reduce the presence of troops in the Muslim region and help disband its private armies. And upon passage of the law, the 25-year-old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will be abolished and replaced by a new political entity, the Bangsamoro.

“So much work remains to be done to build peace on the ground,” Coronel-Ferrer stressed. “We cannot afford to lose more time and resources before the peace dividends are felt in the communities."

The task force’s duties include coordinating with government agencies, development partners, the private sector and other stakeholders to monitor and support the transition of decommissioned fighters, and to conduct community programs such as those for people displaced by the conflict.

The process aims to see the transformation of MILF camps into civilian communities and the implementation of special socio-economic and development programs for decommissioned women auxiliary forces.

Coronel-Ferrer said both the government and MILF panels had welcomed three foreign experts -- including Turkish diplomat Haydar Berk -- who will sit on "the International Decommissioning Body" that will oversee the process alongside four local experts.

The two panels had met in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur last September to discuss the disarmament process.

MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal had told Anadolu Agency that decommissioning would begin at the start of 2015.