By: Ali Macabalang
COTABATO CITY – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has asked President Rodrigo Duterte to “return to the Maranao” Marawi lands they lost to the government through the years.
MILF First Vice-Chairman Ghazzali Jaafar said the proposal is part of the process of “correcting the historical injustices on the Moro people.”
He said the request was conveyed to and welcomed by Duterte in their meeting last week in Davao City.
Jaafar on Friday read to visiting foreign journalists at the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, a historical summary of the land dispossession, starting with the colonial succession of the Americans from the Spaniards with the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
Marawi City was created in 1940 by Commonwealth Act 592 with its original name Dansalan, meaning “harbor.”