Basilan infra projects driving local Abu Sayyaf forces away

COTABATO CITY --- The heavy military presence and massive implementation of infrastructure projects in southern island provinces are pushing the Abu Sayyaf out, security officials said Friday.In Basilan, a province in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the isolated hinterlands where the Abu Sayyaf once ran shadow governments’ are now connected to town centers by concrete roads.It was in Basilan where the Abu Sayyaf first emerged in 1991, founded by the late Abdurajak Janjalani, who had worked in the Middle East years before.While a contract worker abroad, he became friend of many Arab extremists whose activities inspired him to organize the Abu Sayyaf. He was killed in an encounter with police in 1996 in a coastal area at the border of the cities of Isabela and Lamitan.Janjalani was of mixed Tausug-Ilonggo descent. His family even had a small bakery in Barangay Tabuk in Isabela City, the former capital of Basilan. Most remote barangays in Basilan are now within easy reach of our personnel in the municipal police offices, Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said on Friday.Reports obtained this week from the municipal peace and order councils in Basilan indicated recent successes in the peaceful settlement of deadly feuds among local clans.Reconciled leaders of rival families have agreed to work together in protecting on-going projects in their domains from getting sabotaged by the Abu Sayyaf, according Senior Superintendent Nickson Muksan, director of the Basilan provincial police.Sindac said there has been a considerable decline in crimes in most municipalities in Basilan as a consequence of the improving mobility of policemen and military personnel in the island province.Pablan Alih, a Basilan-based senior staff of the Department of the Interior and Local Government-ARMM, said the outreach missions of health and social welfare personnel of the regional government have also increased in frequency in the past three years. They can now get through far places that did not have roads before. The presence of government is now felt in areas whose residents the lawless groups had once controlled at gunpoint, Alih said.Alih, a Yakan, said credit has to go to the local executives, the Basilan provincial government, the office of Basilan District Engineer Soler Undug, the regional public works department and the Office of the Regional Governor, which is touted as the Little Malacañang of ARMM.The infrastructure projects the ARMM government implemented in Basilan in the past four years were joint development ventures of Undug, the region’s chief executive, Gov. Mujiv Hataman and his public works secretary, Engineer Don Loong.Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr., commander of the Western Mindanao Command, said what helped weaken the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan besides the ARMM infrastructure projects is the presence of local executives in their municipalities to personally oversee the pacification efforts of their respective LGUs. The military and the police cannot do the work alone. The local officials there and the ARMM government are actively experimenting on joint interventions to lure Abu Sayyaf members to return to the fold of law and their experiments are bearing fruits, Galvez said.In the past 24 months, more than 50 Abu Sayyaf gunmen in Basilan, mostly ethnic Yakans, pledged allegiance to the Philippine flag through the efforts of the mayors, the Basilan provincial government and the Hataman-led ARMM regional peace and order council. They must have realized the wrongness of their activities and the perils of living a dangerous life in places where infrastructures are now in place, generating livelihood opportunities they can avail of to have normal lives, Galvez said.Galvez said the maneuverability of coastguard and Navy watercrafts operating along the coasts of Basilan is also a lot easier now with the construction by the Hataman administration of small seaports on strategic sites around the province using ARMM’s yearly infrastructure budget.Galvez said Basilan also has a new roll on, roll off docking facility in Lamitan City for larger commercial and military vessels.The vice mayor of the seaside Lamitan City, Roderick Furigay, said the P150 million port was launched early this year by local officials led by Hataman. Shipping companies had sent us feelers signifying their interest to cater to the shipping needs of the city and nearby towns. This is a very positive development, Galvez said Abu Sayyaf forces in Sulu have also been on the run for many months now due to the easier movement of tanks and combat vehicles on newly-built ARMM-funded roads and seaports.A group of Abu Sayyaf bandits in Tawi-Tawi, also an ARMM component province, surrendered to authorities early this last week.Regional police officials attribute the surrender of Abu Sayyaf gunmen in Tawi-Tawi to the efficiency of provincial executives and the ARMM government in addressing domestic socio-economic concerns.