Basilan's 4,000 hectares offered to be planted with bananas

BASILAN -With a boom on road constructions in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the dividends of development by way of billions of pesos are beginning to pour into the southern provinces.
The latest bit of international largesse comes from John Paul C. Perrine, the company President of Unifrutti Group of Companies who proposed a 4,000 hectares of land in Basilan Province to be planted with Bananas.
Mr Perrine had recently visited the Office of ARMM Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman in Cotabato City where a forum was held with key officials of the Autonomous Government.
Mr. Perrine said the company anchored its trust in ARMM as an investment area after a successful banana farming venture like in Datu Paglas.
Datu Paglas, the town of the late mayor Ebrahim Paglas, became a model for development when the Paglas family partnered with the multinational to develop about 1,000 hectares into a banana farm.
Mr. Paglas once said that among farm workers in the plantation are rebels who threw their firearms and started working in the fields.
DPWH-ARMM Sec Don Mustapha Loong, who is in charge of the Public Works activities in the area said that Mr. Perrine found it easy to invest in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao because it has an enlightened leadership under Governor Mujiv Hataman.
Perhaps this is one reason that the company did not wait for the eventual setting up of the Bangsamoro, an entity that will replace the autonomous region based on the agreement that the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed early this year.
Sec Loong said that rural infrastructure might be the costliest of investments, yet they are the most fundamental without which agricultural production has no foundation to grow.
Basilan District Engineer Soler Undug said that the circumferential road in the province had been completed and they are now continuing work on the Trans central road connecting to the circumferential road on three (3) points.
There will be more roads to be paved come 2016, I think Basilan will be saturated with concrete roads, ports water supply and many other infrastructure, he said.
The forum is part of the economic growth and linkages cluster activity of the Hataman Administration headed by Chairman Atty Ishak Mastura of the Regional Board of Investments.
DPWH-Sec Don Mustapha Loong, RPDO Dir Bai Intan and ARMM Chief of Staff Ras Mitmug was also present together with other members of the ARMM Cabinet including JICA Cotabato Head Naoyuki Ochiai.
Mr Perrine had partnered with World Bank and the Mindanao Rural Development Program of the Department of Agriculture.
Camp Abubakar Siddique, the former main base of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the first district of Maguindanao, is also being eyed as site for a multi-million-peso banana plantation to be funded by the World Bank (WB) through the Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP).
The current name given to the former MILF base in Camp Iranun which covers several thousands of hectares straddled in the Iranun towns of Buldon, Barira, and Matanog in Maguindanao, and partly of Butig in Lanao del Sur.
Maguindanao Governor Esmael Toto” Mangudadatu said some 3,000 hectares of the camp is now being prepared for planting to Cavendish banana under the agriculture component of the PRDP’s Mindanao-focused segment bankrolled by the World Bank.