ARMM projects intended to address regional security woes

COTABATO CITY --- Officials are optimistic they can nip Islamic militancy from the bud in five Moro provinces with P10.1 billion worth of infrastructure projects in 2017.Fanatical jihadists now spreading in isolated areas in these provinces are eloquently using poverty as pitch to undermine the government.A big amount from the grant is earmarked for various projects in isolated towns in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Sulu where there are radical forces emerging in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.The three provinces are component areas of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which also covers the islands of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.Most of the projects to be implemented in these provinces next year are arterial road networks needed to maximize access of children to public schools, as outlined in the newly-enacted ARMM Public Works Act for 2017.In the second district of Maguindanao, a known bastion of the fanatical Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, engineers constructed 74 public school buildings in the past 36 months in support of efforts to address illiteracy, main cause of the vulnerability of local folks to extremism.Records and drone images obtained on Wednesday from the office of Engineer James Mlok, chief of the Maguindanao 2ndDistrict Engineering Office, indicated that most of the school buildings built during the period are in strongholds of BIFF forces.The BIFF is restraining children of Moro families from entering regular schools for them to be easily indoctrinated by radical preachers in its ranks.Sources from the Commission on Audit confirmed on Thursday that the school buildings built by the Maguindanao 2ndDEO have all been inspected and turned over to the local communities.Drone footage from Mlok’s office also showed that most school campuses in the 2nddistrict of Maguindanao are now connected to remote villages by farm-to-market roads constructed in the past three years.The BIFF and the Dawlah Islamiya, also known as the Maute terror group operating in the first district of Lanao del Sur, are enforcing a ruthless Taliban style justice system in underdeveloped areas, from whose residents they collect zakat (alms) at gunpoint to sustain the food and other needs of members.John Magno, regional education secretary of ARMM, said they will expand in 2017 their peace education programs in conflict-prone areas to help address Islamic militancy.The Department of Education-ARMM hired more than 2,000 licensed teachers in the past 36 months, now deployed in remote towns where there are new school buildings built by the region’s public works department through its eight component-district engineering offices. We don’t have absentee or ghost teachers anymore as what the department had before 2013. That anomaly condoned lawlessness in many areas in the autonomous region. Education is a potent antidote to religious extremism, Magno said.Engineer Don Loong, regional secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways, said in Sulu alone, dozens of new schools buildings were made accessible to school children by newly-built farm-to-market roads. We have video documentations on how children now conveniently walk their way to school as a result of these projects, he said.ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman signed early this month the region’s Public Works Act for 2017 detailing all projects to be funded with a P10.1 billion allocation from the national coffer.The regional edict, crafted yearly by the 24-member Regional Assembly, touted as the little Congress of ARMM, is focused onconstruction of major roads and bridges, water supply facilities, seaports and flood control structures.It is also has provisions defining strategic infrastructure initiatives meant to promote peace and security and boost the ARMM’s investment and tourism climate.