The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a historic peace agreement on Thursday, ending 40 years of conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and stalled economic development in areas affected by fighting.

Guns will finally fall silent in southern Philippines after the five-page Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was forged in Malacanang, the presidential palace, before a thousand guests including Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and 600 members of the MILF. Malaysia served as the third party facilitator for the peace negotiations.

The CAB was signed by Philippine government peace panel chairman Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and MILF peace panel chairman Mohagher Iqbal in the presence of Malaysian facilitator Tengku Dato Ab Ghafar Tengku Mohamed, with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, Najib, and MILF Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim as witnesses.

"With sincerity, we offer the CAB to the Filipino people as the grandest articulation of our aspirations," said Murad during his speech before the signing of the pact.

For his part, Aquino vowed to stop "spoilers" who will try to derail efforts of the Philippine government and the MILF to set up the Bangsamoro political entity.

"I will not let peace be snatched from my people again, not now when we have taken the most significant step to achieve it," he said.

Aquino said the "next mission" is to have the Bangsamoro Transition Authority in place by 2015. This will serve as the interim government until a plebiscite to determine the areas that will be covered by the new political entity is held in 2016.

"For now, more work needs to be done and I look forward to building a peaceful, prosperous and inclusive Bangsamoro with all of you," said Aquino.

It took nearly two decades before the Philippine government and the MILF have been able to come up with a "win-win" solution to end 40 years of fighting. Formal peace talks kicked off in 1997 when the government and the MILF agreed to a ceasefire.

Negotiations, however, bogged down in 2000 when former Philippine President Joseph Estrada declared an all-out war against the MILF.

In 2001, the Philippine government tried to revive peace talks but negotiations suffered a setback when the military launched a campaign near an MILF camp in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao in 2003.

Peace talks between the two parties picked up steam in 2011 following the pronouncement made by the MILF that it was no longer demanding the establishment of an independent state.

A year later, the Philippine government and the MILF forged a preliminary agreement dubbed as the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) which will pave the way for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with the new Bangsamoro political entity. The FAB was signed in Malacanang in October 2012.

Following the signing of the framework agreement, the Philippine government and the MILF resumed talks to discuss the details and annexes of the final peace agreement, guided by the mechanisms prescribed under the FAB.

In December 2012, Aquino issued an executive order creating the Transition Commission which was tasked to draft the Bangsamoro Basic Law provided for in the FAB.

On Jan. 25 this year, the Philippine government and the MILF removed the last obstacle to forging the CAB when they completed the last of the four Annexes to the FAB. The two parties admitted that securing the nod for the Annex on Normalization was the most difficult as it requires the MILF to give up their arms.

The establishment of the Bangsamoro political entity will now depend on Philippine Congress which will scrutinize and enact the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law.

The Philippine government noted that despite the 1996 peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front, the ARMM continues to be among the poorest and least developed regions in the country.