Development plan for MILF’s former main bastion gains support

COTABATO CITY - Mayors of towns around the erstwhile iconic main enclave of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Maguindanao del Norte are ready to help push forward Malacañang’s 20-year development plan aiming to transform the area into an economic hub.

The Master Development Plan for Camp Abubakar, or MDCA, was launched last Wednesday by officials of the Bangsamoro regional government, local executives, Presidential Peace, Reconciliation and Unity Adviser Carlito Galvez, Jr. and Brig. Gen. Eric Macaambac of the Navy’s 1^st Marine Brigade during a symbolic rite in Barangay Tugaig in the upland Barira town.

Mayor Cahar Ibay of the seaside Parang town in Maguindanao del Norte told reporters on Thursday that he and other municipal chief executives shall help push the MDCA forward, certain of its positive impact on the lives of Maranaw, Iranun and Maguindanaon residents in agricultural enclaves in at least nine municipalities around Camp Abubakar.

“Local executives can even organize a bloc that can help hasten its implementation,” Ibay, whose municipality hosts the Polloc International Seaport close to Camp Abubakar, said, speaking on behalf of mayors grouped as the Iranun Peace and Economic Council.

Now a “peace zone,” Camp Abubakar is surrounded by the municipalities of Kapatagan and Butig in Lanao del Sur, Buldon, Barira, Matanog, Parang, Sultan Mastura and Sultan Kudarat in Maguindanao del Norte and Pigcawayan in Cotabato. 

The camp, established in the early 1980s by the MILF's founder, the late Islamic theologian Salamat Hashim, spans more than 20,000 hectares of land with rolling terrains, crisscrossed by rivers that spring from tropical rainforests in hinterlands around. It was taken over by state forces on July 16, 2000 after a week-long bloody offensive and is now guarded by units of the 1^st Marine Brigade.

Galvez said on Thursday that the Marines, the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division shall also help in furthering the agenda of the MDCA, focused on housing for marginalized Moro villagers, setting up water supply systems, access roads, telecommunications, health and trading facilities and vital agricultural interventions needed to boost the productivity of local farming communities.

The BARMM government, whose chief minister, Ahod B. Ebrahim is chairman of the MILF’s central committee, will partly bankroll the housing projects for Moro villagers residing around Camp Abubakar, whose center is in Barangay Tugaig. 

BARMM’s labor minister, Muslimin Sema, who is chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, told reporters on Thursday that he will urge MNLF representatives in the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament to sponsor a resolution committing support for the Camp Abubakar development plan.