Separatist pact holds: RP military

Separatist pact holds: RP military

MANILA (AFP): A month-old ceasefire accord is largely intact in the southern region of Mindanao despite scattered skirmishes between government troops and Moro separatist rebels, the Philippine military said on Thursday.

President Gloria Arroyo has sent a senior peace negotiator to the south to keep alive peace negotiations after clashes there last weekend left at least 15 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members dead.

Military chief of staff Gen. Diomedio Villanueva said government forces in Mindanao "have been exercising strict precautionary measures as stated in the ceasefire agreement," signed in Malaysia last month.

"But we have been given the authority to protect the people and communities from aggression" by the 12,500-member MILF, Villanueva told reporters. He said based on these parameters, "we think it's (the truce is) holding."

Arroyo hopes to take advantage of the truce to strike a peace settlement with the MILF this year, ending the fighting with the 23-year-old movement -- the largest guerrilla army now arrayed against the Philippines, which is also fighting communist rebels.