Basilan peace projects continue in 2020 despite pandemic
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The coronavirus pandemic has not stifled the 2020 peace initiatives of residents of Basilan, popular now for the fragile peace spreading across its four corners once dotted with Abu Sayyaf enclaves.
Military officials said it was for the concerted security efforts of Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman and his 12 constituent-mayors that started years prior that made 2020 a productive year for the island province.
Basilan, a component-province of the Bangsamoro region, has 11 municipalities and two cities — Isabela and Lamitan.
Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the Philippine Army, said Friday credit for the markedly improving security situation in Basilan ought to go to its provincial, municipal and city officials.
“Obviously they took the lead. Our units there only provided support role. The role of local government units in addressing domestic security problems via governance is really indispensable,” Sobejana said.
Salliman, now on his second term as governor, said fighting COVID-19 while forging ahead with its peace and development initiatives for 2020 was something so tough for his administration.
“But the show went on just the same. We’ve had tangible accomplishments still despite our having devoted so much time, effort and resources to our war on COVID-19,” Salliman said.
The Basilan provincial government received in 2019 the vaunted Seal of Good Local Governance, or SGLG, from the office of Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año.
Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, Jr. of the Western Mindanao Command said what helped secure the peace in Basilan were the agricultural projects of the provincial government in the past two years.
Among those projects were the setting up of two drip-irrigated greenhouses, one in Isabela City and another in Maluso town, as showcases of organic vegetable farming to encourage diversification by local farmers, among them reforming former Abu Sayyaf members.
The provincial and local governments settled, with the help of the Army's 101st Infantry Brigade and the police, more than a dozen deadly clan wars in Basilan since 2016, according to Vinluan.
Basilan is now more known as the new investment frontier of the Bangsamoro region.
Zamboanga-Basilan ferry route
Representatives from the FastCat shipping company inspected last December the Isabela City port in preparation for its Zamboanga-Basilan ferry operations starting this year.
Basilan residents have been, for more than a year now, complaining on lack of passenger boats serving the route.
The FastCat is also targeting to provide passenger boats for the Zamboanga-Lamitan City route.
The cities of Isabela and Lamitan are the port hubs of Basilan, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro region.
Juvenal Azurin, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency for the Bangsamoro region, said Saturday local officials have converted Maluso, an erstwhile transshipment point for shabu in Basilan, into a peaceful and progressive municipality.
The Maluso LGU thrice received in the past three years an SGLG award from the central office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
The second–termer mayor of Maluso, Hanie Bud, received last month the Local Government Functional Appraisal Award, or LoGFA, from the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government of the Bangsamoro region.
The MILG’s grant of LoGFA to the Maluso LGU was premised on its best practices in public service and in maintaining law and order in the municipality, known in the past as the “shabu capital” of Basilan.
Maluso has been declared “drug free” by an inter-agency committee led by PDEA’s office in the Bangsamoro region, whose members include representatives from the police and the WestMinCom based in Zamboanga City.
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