Zamboanga City - The head of the government`s Mindanao peace panel is optimistic an ancestral domain agreement with Moro separatists would be signed within the year.
This was after the government hired the services of legal experts to "calibrate" the key points and the content of the draft ancestral domain agreement.
"We carefully went through all the legal issues [in the ancestral domain draft]," former Armed Forces general Rodolfo C. Garcia told BusinessWorld after several weeks of silence.
An ancestral domain agreement is the last hurdle to a peace pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The government and the MILF have already struck agreements pertaining to security, rehabilitation and development.
Source: www.gmanews.tv (12 April 2008)