MANILA, Philippines - Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada over the weekend lashed out at former President Fidel Ramos, saying the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was the biggest failure of the latter’s administration.
Ramos had earlier blamed Estrada’s all-out war on Muslim rebels in Mindanao as the reason for the escalation of conflict in the south.
“Somebody, who I will no longer name, is the creator of the Mindanao conflict,” Ramos earlier told a radio interview, apparently referring to Estrada.
“This guy in April 2000, destroyed the 27 years of hard work that led to the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF),” Ramos added.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Universal Peace Federation’s Asian Summit 2015 at the Manila Hotel Saturday, the mayor described Ramos as an “attention seeker.”
“He is KSP (kulang sa pansin). But I respect the elderly. The creation of the ARMM was the biggest failure of the Ramos government. Aside from the hundreds of lives lost, thousands of people were displaced, billions of pesos of government money were lost,” Estrada said.
He said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front came into its own after the 1996 peace deal that Ramos signed with Nur Misuari’s MNLF. The MILF actually broke away from the MNLF in the mid-1980s.
“The all-out war that I launched has neutralized all the 46 camps of the MILF. Unfortunately, I was not able to finish my term that prompted the MILF to regain its power,” Estrada said.
He acknowledged that former presidents, including him, had tried but failed to achieve peace in Mindanao.