School kids' parents help soldiers in making new classrooms

From the Philippine Star (Jun 6): School kids' parents help soldiers in making new classrooms



Moro children wait for their turns to receive school supplies and food from the provincial government of Maguindanao during an outreach mission this week as highlight of the launching of a joint civil-military school building project in Datu Unsay town. John Unson

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Parents of pupils enrolled at the Datu Unsay Elementary School (DUCES) in southern Maguindanao are helping protect unarmed soldiers constructing new classrooms for their children.

The move, supported by barangay officials in Maguindanao’s Datu Unsay and Datu Saudi towns, is a community response to an appeal by Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Magudadatu for local folks to help ensure the swift construction of a new school building inside the DUCES campus.

Members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters destroyed the school buildings in the campus and even burned down one, built with the help of World Bank, in one attack after another from 2012 until 2014.

“We are here to help protect the soldiers implementing the school building project. We are doing this for the sake of our children,” Emraida, a mother of three, said in the Maguindanaon vernacular.

The military is confident it can easily accomplish the construction the school building project, bankrolled with a P700,000 grant from the office of Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the provincial peace and order council, which is chaired by Mangudadatu, is helping in the implementation of the project.

“This is a big help and this support from the ARMM, the provincial governor of Maguindanao and the local government units there will also educate the public that the Army is a partner in peace programs intended to address illiteracy in far-flung areas,” Pangilinan said.

The ARMM-assisted school building project is being built by the 6th Civil Military Operations (CMO) Battalion.

Members of the CMO unit, led by Lt. Col. Noman Alcovindas, earlier refurbished, with the help of Mangudadatu and the United States embassy, the dilapidated classrooms in the same school.

Alcovindas and his men turned over to teachers the rehabilitated school buildings and other facilities last Monday, during the symbolic launching of the ARMM school building project.

The groundbreaking rite for the new school building was jointly officiated last week by Pangilinan, Hataman, Maguindanao 2nd District Schools Superintendent Miriam Kawit, and a representative of Mangudadatu, Lynette Estandarte, who is chief of the provincial budget office.

Alcovindas said Estandarte, in-charge of the provincial government’s disaster and conflict response team, and her subordinates helped repair the school buildings, chairs and other facilities in the DUCES campus and in nearby schools in Shariff Aguak and Datu Saudi towns.

Hataman said the money for the project was drawn from the Special Purpose Fund of his office.
The DUCES campus is surrounded by hinterlands from where the outlawed BIFF launched attacks on highways straddling through Maguindanao and on roadside Moro peasant enclaves.

http://www.philstar.com/nation/2015/06/06/1462898/school-kids-parents-help-soldiers-making-new-classrooms