Manila: President Rodrigo Duterte has prepared an executive order to create a new commission comprised of members of two major Filipino-Muslim rebel groups that have forged separate pro-autonomy peace settlements with the Philippine government, a senior official has said.

The commission will draft new legislation that will create a wider and more powerful autonomous region in the southern Philippines, the official added.

Duterte will sign the executive order on Monday, November 7, thus creating an expanded Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), said Secretary Jess Dureza, head of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP).

The BTC will include members of the 38-year old Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the 44-year old Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Dureza said the two groups will sit at the peace table and draft a bill that will create the proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region — based on the consolidated peace agreements struck between the Philippine government and the MILF in 2014; and the Philippine government and the MNLF — forged twice, in Libya in 1976; and in Manila in and 1996.

The proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region will call for enhanced self-rule and the sharing of power and economic benefits with the local government unit, said Dureza.

“This is a step closer to a comprehensive and inclusive resolution of the decades-long armed conflict between Muslim rebels and government soldiers in Mindanao,” Dureza said.

“The unity of two major Filipino-Muslim rebel groups [in addressing] the historical injustices committed against the Moro people is an unprecedented and historic development,” he added.

The revamped BTC will have 21 members.

After the Philippine government and the MILF forged a political settlement in 2014, the BTC was created with 15 members — eight from the MILF and seven from government.

Muslimin Sema, leader of one of several MNLF factions, said his group had already forged a mutual cooperation agreement with the MILF.

“We cannot solve the Moro problem if we are disunited. We have a Mindanaon president who understands the Mindanao Moro situation,” Sema said.

The proposed Bangsamoro region is meant to replace the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which has five provinces and two cities as members.

The ARMM was created in 1989, following a referendum for autonomy — a provision of law that was included in the 1987 Constitution. A second referendum for autonomy was held in 2001, after the Philippine government and the MNLF forged a pro-autonomy peace settlement in 1996.

In 2001, MNLF founding chairman Nur Misuari relaunched an armed struggle which killed thousands in the south. In 2013, Misuari’s faction declared the establishment of the United Federal States of Bangsamoro Republik, which were composed of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawu, and Palawan, in the southern Philippines, as well as Sabah in North Borneo, Malaysia.

The MILF became a faction of the MNLF in 1978, after the Philippine government and the MNLF forged their first pro-autonomy peace settlement in Libya in 1976. Since then, the two groups remained rivals.

Member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been helping the Philippine government in its peace initiatives with the MNLF and the MILF.