2,000 houses for war evacuees seen
COTABATO CITY—The government is spending at least P62 million to build 2,340 houses for hundreds of residents of Maguindanao who had been displaced by fighting between government soldiers and Moro separatist rebels.
A check representing the funds had been turned over on Friday to officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for them to start building houses for residents uprooted from their communities by the 2008 fighting between soldiers and rebels.
Bainon Karon, acting ARMM vice governor, received the check in rites held in Malacañang that were witnessed by executives of Maguindanao and other local officials.
Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu said the ceremony manifested the sincerity of President Aquino in efforts to bring peace to conflict-torn areas in Mindanao.
New guerrilla force
Peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which had dropped a demand for an independent state in favor of an expanded autonomous region, had been complicated by the emergence of a new guerrilla group under renegade leader Ameril Umra Kato.
Kato, who had been rumored to have died of a lingering illness, broke off from the MILF and formed the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement which has its own armed component called Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
According to Mangudadatu, at least 2,000 houses would be built in Maguindanao and are expected to be completed in April or May.
Constant flight
He said the housing project would involve 11 villages in the towns of Talayan, Datu Midtimbang, Datu Piang, Datu Saudi and Anggal.
Some war evacuees who had been relocated to settlements in Maguindanao near the Liguasan Marsh had to flee their new communities when floods struck these.
Water from the Pulangui River in Bukidnon and other waterways from the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato and South Cotabato had caused Liguasan Marsh to overflow, authorities said. The 220,000-hectare Liguasan Marsh serves as a natural catch basin for some of Mindanao’s major rivers.
Flood woes
Lt. Col. Benjamin Hao, head of the 7th Infantry Battalion, said at least 2,217 families in two towns—Montawal and Pagalungan—had been evacuated as flood levels rose in their villages. There were no reports of casualties. Charlie C. Señase, Inquirer Mindanao
