Road builders breaking through once dangerous Basilan hinterland
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 12:00 PM Wed Jul 24, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
A backhoe opens a route through an abandoned Abu Sayyaf camp. (John Unson)
BASILAN --- A backhoe of the Basilan provincial government removes large boulders from an abandoned enclave of the Abu Sayyaf in a hinterland at the border of Barangays Tumahubong in Sumisip town and Santa Clara, Lamitan City.
Engineers will construct in the area the remaining three-kilometer stretch of the highway traversing the highland rainforests in the center of Basilan province.
Misguided Islamic militants had built enclaves, from between 2003 to 2010, on the hills now traversed by newly-constructed stretches of the Basilan Transcentral Highway there.
They eventually abandoned one after another their encampments in densely-forested highlands there following the surrender in batches in the past two years of more than 200 Abu Sayyaf gunmen.
They agreed to reintegrate into mainstream society through the intercession of provincial officials the now defunct Office of the Regional Governor-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Philippine National Police and the Western Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces.