DAVAO CITY – The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front held another decommissioning program for fighters of the MILF, in what they announced would be continuing until March this year.
On Tuesday, the Turkey-chaired Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB) facilitated the decommissioning of 106 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Force, the armed wing of the MILF at the Old Provincial Capitol, Sultan Kudarat in Maguindanao. This batch of fighters were those stationed in Lanao del Sur.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Barmm) said Tuesday’s program was the resumption of the Phase II Decommissioning of MILF-BIAF combatants and weapons until March, when the MILF would have completed the agreed decommissioning of 30 percent of its armed force.
The MILF has declared a fighting force of 40,000.
The Barmm Bureau of Public Information said each of the former combatants received P100,000 cash and a socio-economic assistance package. Their families would also get a package of some P500,000 up to P1-million worth of healthcare assistance, scholarships for their children, housing, and livelihood projects from the government.
The information office quoted one MILF combatant Aminudin Casubidan Makawadib, 47, a resident of Lumbatan in Lanao del Sur, as saying he would use the money for a family business.
“Iyong makukuha namin na pera galing sa gobyerno ay ilalaan namin sa aming mga planong negosyo doon sa lugar naming. Maraming salamat sa ating gobyerno (We would set aside the money we’ll get from government for our business in our place. Thanks a lot toour government,” he was quoted as saying during the program.
BARMM Executive Secretary Abdulraof Macacua thanked the Bangsamoro government’s partners from the national government “for being consistent in ensuring that the peace process is right on track”.
To the combatants, Macacua said “as always, we are grateful to our brethren in the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces who are in solidarity with us all throughout the peace process”.
Undersecretary David Diciano, chairman of the government’s Peace Implementing Panel and head of the Joint Normalization Division, said the national office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) would hire social workers to evaluate the status of the combatants in their respective communities.
“The Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority (BPDA-BARMM) would work together with the Joint Task-Force Camp Transformation to develop the six majors camps,” Diciano also said.
On September last year, some 1,060 MILF combatants were decommissioned, along with their 920 weapons and 20 heavy weapons.
Also much earlier on in June 2015, the MILF decommissioned 145 of its veteran fighters in a ceremony held inside the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Barangay Simuay, in the town of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao. The MILF also turned over 75 high-powered rifles, from an M-50 machine gun and B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launchers to Barrette sniper rifles and a lone vintage Browning Automatic Rifle.
The decommissioning of the MILF combatants and their weapons was part of the normalization process agreed upon by both government and the MILF after they signed the peace agreement in 2015. Government and the MILF both created the IDB to oversee the decommissioning process. This body is composed of a multi-nation representatives and chaired by Turkey.