OPAPRU, Basilan LGUs to implement 2 peacebuilding projects – BusinessWorld Online
COTABATO CITY — The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) and the provincial government of Basilan forged an agreement to jointly implement two more peacebuilding programs in the island province.
The now markedly peaceful Basilan is one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and is touted as one of BARMM’s new investment hubs.
BARMM regional officials told reporters on Monday that Basilan Governor Mujiv S. Hataman and Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. of OPAPRU signed the agreements for the two peace and socio-economic programs during a multi-sector peace forum at the provincial capitol in Barangay Santa Clara in Lamitan City on Thursday last week.
The first of the two agreements binds OPAPRU and the provincial government and all other local government units (LGUS) in Basilan to cooperate in implementing the Localizing Normalization Implementation (LNI) Program, aiming to sustain the peace now spreading around the province.
The second agreement obliges the OPAPRU and the Hataman administration to implement together the Preventing and Transforming Violent Extremism, which complements the LNI Program.
Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulrauf A. Macacua, chairperson of the multi-sector and inter-agency BARMM Regional Peace and Order Council, said on Monday that all provincial offices in Basilan of the agencies under his office will support both peacebuilding programs.
The two programs are focused on improving the lives, via humanitarian interventions, of decommissioned combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and former violent religious extremists who have returned to the fold of law through the joint intercession of local executives in Basilan, the police and the military.
Provincial and municipal officials in Basilan separately told reporters that the national government has earmarked P14 million for both programs that the military’s Western Mindanao Command and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region shall both support too.
Mr. Hataman said he is certain that the MILF, the Moro National Liberation Front and former members of the Abu Sayyaf terror group who have pledged allegiance to the government will help push the two peacebuilding programs forward. — John Felix M. Unson
