Lasting peace pushed in Mindanao

1. After the damage is done, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines pour huge project to Moro?

2. I believe that Moro need prevention rather than medicine.

3. Peace issue in Mindanao is endless talks. 

4. Allow me to ask if the government is sincere with the peace agreement.
5. Prof. Eddie Ladja once said, "Why we (Moro) allow people outside to reconstruct Mindanao?". Let Moro decide their own. Yet they know what is best for them.

Lasting peace pushed in Mindanao

By ALI G. MACABALANG

PIGCAWAYAN, North Cotabato, Philippines – As they freshly acquired “new and better houses,” dozens of villagers who lost their abodes in the 2008 atrocities are wishing for sustained peace in Mindanao.

Salama, a 12-year-old child of a Moro farmer-family, ardently prayed that the dreadful sounds of mortars being fired just a few steps away from their classroom in 2008 would not happen again.

She said she skipped her studies after that traumatic experience.

While Tauntik, a 42-year-old displaced Muslim farmer, trusts that he will be spared the agony of being separated from his wife and three kids as they fled from the raging firefights between government troops and defiant Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas in their village.

On the other hand, 32-year-old Alenith, a Visayan settler here, hopes for a peace agreement forged soon between the government and MILF negotiating peace panels so that she will never again witness bloody clashes, while 21-year-old Johari looks forward to raising his children far from the perils of armed conflict that left them homeless.

The families of Salama, Tauntik, Alenith, and Johari were among those awarded with shelter units by the government through the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Shelter Assistance Project of the PAMANA or Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Peaceful and Resilient Communities) program implemented here and in the nearby Aleosan town, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPAP) said.

“Along with hundreds of residents from Maguindanao and this North Cotabato town, they were displaced by armed clashes spawned by the botched signing of the government-MILF Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain in August, 2008.

“Salama, Tauntik, Alenith, and Johari have held on to their hopes of a more peaceful and progressive life” as their respective families received their individual certificates of ownership of core shelters built earlier and awarded them in emotion-packed ceremonies last week, the OPAPP statement said.

The turnover rites yielded a total of 265 shelter units to beneficiary families – 190 in Barangay Libungan Toretta in Pigcawayan, and 75 in Barangay Dunguan in Aleosan, North Cotabato, OPAPP records said.

PAMANA is pursued by the Aquino administration as a program and framework for peace and development in conflict-affected areas as well as communities covered by existing truce.

“It seeks to reduce poverty, improve governance, and empower communities through interventions from the state,” said the OPAPP statement furnished this writer Monday.

Apart from the certificates of commitment and ownership for the shelters, the recipient-residents were also provided with calamansi (lemon) seedlings, and family packs containing rice, noodles, milk, and sardines, it said.

The awarding rites were attended by North Cotabato 2nd District Representative Jesus Sacdalan, Pigcawayan Mayor Roberto Blase, Aleosan Mayor Loreto Cabaya, Provincial Board Member Jun Garcesa representing Governor Lala Taliño-Mendoza, Region 12 Director Zorahayda Taha of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and OPAPP Director for PAMANA Eric Dela, among others.

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Posted in: Peace