Cotabato City - The Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS), a network of 164 non-government and people`s organizations announced Wednesday that it has launched a mailing list “to address the gaps in the dissemination of information about the Bangsamoro people`s rights to self-determination.”
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as “the mailing list”, or simply “the list”.
“By logging onto http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bangsamoro-alarm and clicking on `Join This Group` icon, people can sign up to automatically receive e-mails about Bangsamoro and Mindanao issues and concerns,” Guiamel Alim, CBCS chairperson announced.
“The mailing list is open to all.”
“Getting information on the Bangsamoro people`s rights for self-determination out to the people is very important to us,” Sammy Maulana, CBCS secretary-general, said. “This mailing list service would be of great help to the CBCS and to the Bangsamoro people as a whole to connect not only to the people of this country but to the international community as well especially in the face of the present uncertainty in the GRP-Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace talks.”
“We saw what happened to the GRP-Moro National Liberation Front peace pact, and a critical number of Moros have already suffered human rights violations in this country. Key facts relevant to all of these plus efforts on peacebuilding and good governance by the CBCS will be disseminated to the people via the mailing list,” Maulana said.
“This is in a way addressing the kind of information dissemination inequality that prevails in this country on subjects pertinent to the Bangsamoro struggle to self-determination. The Philippine press people are so fixated to issues on terrorism and religious extremism. Their acts advertently or inadvertently promote fear-mongering thereby unjustly watering down or, worse, associating those to the Bangsamoro people`s legitimate rights to self-determination,” Maulana said.
Aside from the mailing list, the CBCS also has a website, www.cbcsi.org, Maulana added.
Early this year the CBCS had mobilized tens of thousands of people Mindanao-wide to press Manila and the MILF to resume their stalled peace talks.
Talks between the two parties have been snagged when MILF negotiating panel refused to meet its government counterpart in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in December 15 to 17 because the government draft of a proposed memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain did not contain much of the consensus points earlier agreed by the two parties.
The GRP also inserted a provision, which provides that the implementation of the agreement will have to follow constitutional process.
Talks progressed when government promised not to use constitution as a framework and the MILF agreed to drop its demand for independence. (Alex B. Labauja/CBCS)
Source: www.mindanews.com (3 April 2008)