MANILA, June 30: The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is “seriously considering” the Philippines’ application for observer status, and will soon send a team to evaluate the bid, a Filipino official said on Sunday.

Presidential spokesman, Silvestre Afable, said that the OIC wants to first make sure that Manila was implementing a 1996 peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which currently holds observer status in the organization.

“The secretary general of the OIC, Abdul-Wahed Belkeziz, is seriously considering the request of the Philippines to be granted OIC observer status,” Afable said in a statement.

Afable said Belkeziz told the presidential adviser on the peace process, Eduardo Ermita, who attended the 29th Islamic Conference in Sudan, that the Philippines’ bid “would not be much of a problem provided that the 1996 peace agreement is fully implemented.”

“An OIC team will soon visit the Philippines to look into the implementation of the (peace) agreement, and should the team report positively, then the application will be immediately submitted to the OIC Secretariat for consideration,” he added.

Afable said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo recently wrote Belkeziz, asking for observer status for the Philippine government. Filipino Muslims have for years been represented in the 56-member OIC by the MNLF, which used to be the largest rebel group in the southern Philippines before it signed the peace pact with the government in September 1996.—dpa