Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Facebook Page (Mar 24, 2020): “We will invest for whatever we receive in the decommissioning”- Sulu MILF Combatant (By Alexander Iskandar)
Cotabato City – Roel Aliasgal, a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) Southern Sulu Provincial Committee told reporters during the 2nd Phase of the Decommissioning of MILF Combatants that, “They will invest whatever they receive in the decommissioning, and we will use as an instrument towards our long-awaited peace. We all believe that peace comes from within us”. Aliasgar is the last of the 12,000 combatants to undergo decommissioning under the 2nd phase of the decommissioning process conducted by the International Decommissioning Body (IDB) on March 20, 2020 at the Maguindanao Old Capitol, Simuay, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.
Under the decommissioning program, each decommissioned combatant received a total of PhP 100,000 in transitory cash assistance from the government aside from other benefits, such as scholarships, livelihood programs, etc.
The decommissioning of MILF forces is among the key provisions of the Annex on Normalization of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) forged between the government and MILF, which aims to help former combatants transform into peaceful and productive citizens, an OPAPP report said.
For Aliasgal and his comrades who travelled for more than twenty hours by boat from the island-province of Sulu to reach Maguindanao, the decommissioning process is very personal.
For more than four decades, MILF fighters like him were engaged in armed battle against the government, for self-rule over the ancestral lands in Mindanao, the OPAPP also said.
The PhP80,000 was provided under the Bangsamoro Transitory Family Support Package (BTFS) and the remaining PhP20,000 was sourced from the Livelihood Settlement Grant (LSG), a fund that was created in partnership between the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
I hope that our lives and mindsets would be back to normal, that we wouldn’t go back to what happened before. As for our families, we have to encourage our children to study not only western education but Islamic studies as well, Aliasgar said.
At least 2,100 assorted weapons and more than 500 ammunitions were also turned over by the former combatants to the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB).
With the successful conduct of the decommissioning phase, the GPH and MILF Implementing Panels are now looking forward to the implementation of the succeeding phases within the next two years, the OPAPP report added.
Earlier this month, members of the international community expressed their strong commitment to the Bangsamoro Peace Process during a Senate committee hearing on the BOL’s implementation. Among those who attended the hearing were the European Union (EU), Embassy of Turkey, Embassy of Japan, and the British Embassy.
At the sidelines of the hearing, Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. said he is very pleased with the successful implementation of the second phase of decommissioning whose effects are now starting to be felt by the MILF members, their families and communities. (Source: OPAPP)
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