Blueprint for Bangsamoro development to be submitted today, Sunday

MUSLIM women stage a rally at the House of Representatives in support of the passage of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law. RICHARD A. REYES

The Bangsamoro Development Agency (BDA) will formally submit the Bangsamoro Development Plan (BDP), described as the comprehensive road map for the social recovery and rehabilitation of the Bangsamoro, to the central committee of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) today (Sunday).

The BDA is the social development arm the MILF had put up in June 2001 to determine, lead and manage relief, rehabilitation and development projects in the conflict-affected areas of Mindanao.

Hana Kabagani, BDA communications officer, said the development plan, which the BDA started to formulate in March 2013, would be handed over to the MILF, headed by Murad Ebrahim, during the formal turnover ceremonies in Camp Darapan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao province.

Those expected to attend the turnover rites include Tengku Dato Ab Ghafar bin Tengku Mohamed, the Malaysian facilitator of the peace talks with Manila; Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles; United Nations resident coordinator Luiza Carvalho; Japan International Cooperative Agency country director Noriaki Niwa, and Motoo Konishi, the country director of the World Bank.

Kabagani described the BDP as the product of collaboration with Muslim, Christian and indigenous peoples communities in the proposed Bangsamoro areas, civil society groups and other development partners and government agencies.

“This is to ensure that the plan reflected the fundamental needs and aspirations of the Bangsamoro people—regardless of religion, ethnic group, political affiliation, or creed—who have lived in a vicious cycle of injustice, violence and poverty for generations,” Kabagani said in a media statement.

The BDP has seven program areas: economy and livelihood, infrastructure, social services, environment and natural resources, culture and identity, governance, and security and normalization.

These, Kabagani said, “will be implemented in the envisioned core territories and adjacent areas” and were “designed to restore confidence and ensure the smooth and inclusive transition from the [Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao] to the Bangsamoro government from 2015 to mid-2016, while laying the foundations for a just, peaceful and prosperous Bangsamoro from mid-2016 to 2022.”

As a blueprint for the development of the Bangsamoro, the BDA, she said, aimed to build the foundations of a “just economy” that would strengthen institutions, promote greater access to social services, jobs and livelihood opportunities and create citizen security, justice and rule of law in the Bangsamoro and its adjacent regions.

In his foreword in the BDA primer, Ebrahim acknowledged that nation-building is a daunting task particularly for the MILF.

“In the case of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, we are aware that our more than four decades of knowledge and experience in the struggle for the Bangsamoro right to self-determination are hardly sufficient and relevant,” he said.

Ebrahim said that because of this, the MILF hoped that “aid agencies and development partners that accompanied us early in our journey toward lasting peace and development, continue to walk with us … until we are able to jump-start a just economy that will provide equal access to livelihood, jobs, justice and security to all residents of the Bangsamoro in the short and medium terms.”