Peace Adviser Razon resigns to run for Manila mayor; Sulu’s Nabil Tan assumes as OIC

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/12 October) – Sulu’s Nabil Tan is now Officer in Charge of the office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, following the resignation of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Avelino Razon, Jr

Razon resigned effective October 12, to prepare for his mayoral bid in Manila in May 2010.

Tan, Deputy Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, is the first Muslim appointed OIC of the OPAPP. But this is his second time as OIC. He served as OIC during the transition in early 2001, after Peace Adviser Manuel Yan retired and before Eduardo Ermita assumed the post of PAPP.

Tan is knowledgeable about the conflict between the Philippine government and the Bangsamoro, having been the first vice governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) from 1990 to 1993 when Zacaria Candao was governor. He is also updated on the peace processes with the National Democratic Front, having worked as Deputy Peace Adviser for more than a decade.

As ARMM Vice Governor and even after his term, he was a member of the government peace panel that negotiated peace with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) from 1992 to 1996.

Tan served as Deputy OPAPP to retired Ambassador Manuel Yan, the government peace panel chair in the negotiations with the MNLF, and the Presidential Advisers that succeeded Yan, after his term as ARMM vice governor in 1993, until January 2002. He returned to OPAPP under Jesus Dureza, in August 2006.

From 2002 to 2003, Tan served as ARMM Executive Secretary to then Governor Parouk Hussein.

From 2003 to 2006, he served as senior adviser in an NGO called Asia America Initiative, which Tan told MindaNews, was doing “peacebuilding works in Sulu, especially assisting public schools and assisting in improving the health system in Sulu.”

Tan has been serving as chair of the government delegation to the Tripartite Review of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) since its first meeting in Jeddah in November 2007.
Razon, a former Philippine National Police chief, assumed the post as OPPAP chief on January 29 from his classmate at the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1974, Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr., who was named head of the Presidential Management Staff. (MindaNews)