The answer is both yes AND no. When the AFP issued its SOMO in July of 2009, and the MILF/BIAF reciprocated a couple of days later, they did so without consulting Kato. For 3 months prior to the SOMO Kato had been effectively sidelined from the chain of command. A sub-Kumander by the name of Zacarias Goma had been made de facto Kumander of the 105 Base Command (Kato-s unit). Goma was issuing orders to Kato's #2, sub-Kumander Alo Binago on behalf of the BIAF General Staff (BIAF being Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the armed wing of the MILF). So then the SOMO, and Kato feels he was being excised from the unit he himself created (the 105 existed before Kato transferred from the 109 but was ineffective).

At that point Kato admits he began sending out feelers to allies within the BIAF about possibly branching out on his own. Then, when the Peace Process resumed, the BIAF General Staff had been in regular communication with Kumander Bravo, CO of the 102 Base Command, and had even promoted Kumander Mars (Pangalian) of the 103 Base Command, the other 2 being the Base Commands who with Kato, formed the so called "Lawless" faction of the MILF/BIAF. They ignored Kato, they didn't try to resolve the warrants issued against him for the 2008 War, they continued to refer to him as "Lawless" so that in effect they condoned the AFP/PNP campaign being waged against his Base Command without considering it a violation of the SOMO, or previous Ceasefire mechanisms.

Kato says that this caused him, in the early months of 2010 to resign his commission as Kumander of the 105 while simultaneously having both underlings AND the MILF political machine within his AOR submit petitions to both the BIAF General Staff and MILF Central Committee NOT to accept Kato's tendered resignation. Instead, the BIAF stayed silent and the MILF CenCom accepted the resignation and offered him a position as a teacher's aide, knowing he would reject it (he is a distinguished theologian in addition to his military experience which only began in middle age).

In December of 2010 he firmly separated from the MILF/BIAF and publicly outted his new organisation BIFF. However, this outting caused unexpected problems for the MILF in that it offered the Government a way in which to hedge in the Peace Process, to avoid substantiative progress while placing the onus on the MILF. Since then both Kato and the MILF Central Committee have played both sides of the fence, refusing to burn that final brisge. It is all rhetoric.

Even when Kumander Bravo deployed 4 senior officers to try and cajole Kato into renouncing this new group Kato has remained steadfast. Moreover, the MILF CenCom has co-operated with the AFP in framing BIFF (Kato's group) for every hiccup in Central Mindanao. CenCom did avert a meltdown when it created the new Base Command, the 118, to sap the 105 and 106 of disaffected personnel so as to circumvent a jumping of ship to BIFF but that is neither here nor there.