Security sector supports colossal Maguindanao business outsourcing project

MAGUINDANAO --- Sectors addressing misguided Islamic militancy see brighter days ahead with the planned employment soon of clerics fluent in Arabic by an emerging call center in Maguindanao.Maguindanao province, a component area of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, has 36 towns where there are Islamic schools propagating Muslim-Christian solidarity, but now misconstrued as espousing militancy and instigating animosity towards the government.A Maguindanaon Army official, Col. Markton Abo of the 6thInfantry Division, said Monday the setting up of the business processing and outsourcing (BPO) center in Buluan town, to employ graduates of Islamic schools, will help disprove notions that Muslim learning institutions are breeding grounds’ for religious extremists.A devout Muslim, Abo, civil-military relations chief of 6thID, said the BPO now being set-up by Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and the Land Bank of the Philippines can boost the normalization agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte’s southern Mindanao peace process.The 6thID has current diplomatic overtures with Moro sectors in central Mindanao meant to restore normalcy in conflict-stricken areas and improve the business climate in impoverished towns. Our commander, Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega, supports that BPO project of the provincial government, Abo said.Alex Buenaventura, president of LBP, and Mangudadatu led on March 1 the groundbreaking rite for the BPO facility, torise along a national highway in the center of Buluan, the capital town of Maguindanao.The LBP provided a P100 million loan for the facility, augmented with a P100 million counterpart from the provincial government. It’s a big business center actually, one that can be a showcase of socio-economic cooperation among foreign and local capitalists and the provincial government, Mangudadatu said.Mangudadatu, now in his third and last term as governor, said the establishment shall have call center employing graduates of Islamic schools fluent in Arabic and can cater to clients in the Middle East. There is a big demand for such in Middle Eastern states, he said.In a message during the launching of the project, Buenaventura said he was amazed with the tranquility in the provincial capital, Buluan, and in neighboring Maguindanao towns.He said he was amazed too on how the provincial government is helping sustain the schooling of no fewer than 7,000 college scholars via the Maguindanao Program for Education and Community Empowerment.The scholarship program for deserving Muslim, Christian and Lumad students have produced more than 3,000 professionals, among them a physician, a lawyer, several veterinarians and agronomists and elementary school teachers now employed in barrio schools.Mangudadatu said they are expecting the completion of the BPO center building project before yearend.A policeman-cleric, Superintendent Ebra Moxsir, chief of the Marawi City police, said Monday providing graduates of Islamic schools with employment will give them sense of belongingness and a chance to prove to their non-Muslim co-workers the profoundness of Quranic teachings on fraternal love and respect for religions. I was elated when I heard that the provincial government of Maguindanao has embarked on a project that can help assimilate into the labor sector our colleagues in the Moro religious communities, said Moxsir, an Islamic theologian.Muslimin Jakilan, ARMM’s labor secretary, said Monday the BPO project of the Maguindanao provincial government will also give graduates of local Islamic schools an opportunity to show that they are just as competitive as the professionals who graduated from mainstream schools. We in the ARMM labor and employment department are happy with that joint venture of the Land Bank and the provincial government of Maguindanao, said Jakilan, a Yakan from Basilan who was a senior official in the Moro National Liberation Front during the 1970s.