Ex-Moro rebels get fishing boats, gears from BARMM

COTABATO CITY - The Bangsamoro government has provided a group of former Moro rebels now being reintegrated to society with essential support to boost their daily catch of freshwater fishes from the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao delivered on Thursday to their village in Barangay Kudal in Pagalungan, Maguindanao del Sur 10 motorized river boats with fishing gears and nets for them to generate more earnings needed to sustain their families and the schooling of their children.

The group that benefited from MAFAR-BARMM’s livelihood support program is comprised of more than 50 former members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that has two separate peace compacts with the government, the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.

Pagalungan Mayor Salik Mamasabulod told reporters Thursday that he is grateful to MAFAR-BARMM for its projects meant to hasten the reintroduction into the local communities of his constituents in Barangay Kudal.

“We are together in ushering these former enemies of the government back into the local communities,” Mamasabulod said.

Barangay Kudal is the birthplace of the founder of MILF, the late Salamat Hashim, who studied Islamic theology at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. 

Residents of Barangay Kudal, scene of deadly clashes between state military forces and MILF guerillas in decades past, rely mainly on propagation of short-term crops and fishing at the Liguasan Delta.

The Liguasan Delta, a catch basin of large rivers that spring from hinterlands in Bukidnon, Cotabato, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces, is the source of freshwater fishes sold daily in markets in Region 12, and in BARMM’s adjoining Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces.