In time of peace, Camp Abubakar becomes MILF’s weapons keeper

REBEL BASE In this photo taken in July 2000, Army soldiers man a checkpoint they set up after government troops overran Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao province, the base of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. —EDWIN BACASMAS

COTABATO CITY, Maguindanao, Philippines — Alex Sulay, a former intelligence operative of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), remembers Camp Abubakar as a bustling community.

Sitting at the center of the mountainous villages of Barira, Buldon, Parang and Matanog towns in Maguindanao province, Camp Abubakar was a convergence point and was developed to be a center of trade and commerce.

In its heyday, it also hosted schools, clinics and places of worship for Muslims.

But beyond these, it was the bastion of the secessionist rebellion waged by the MILF with the goal of establishing an independent Islamic state in Mindanao. Camp Abubakar has its own “university” and has its own weapons factory, recalled Sulay. MILF founder Ustadz Salamat Hashim lived there.

During the all-out war waged by then President Joseph Estrada in 2000, the camp fell into government hands after days of heavy air, artillery and infantry attacks.

Safeguarding weapons

Today, the camp, which has been transformed into a government military facility, will serve as repository of MILF weapons which are being “put beyond use” as part of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) that the government and the MILF signed in 2014.

Already, the barracks of a Joint Peace and Security Team (JPST) had been built in the area, now known as the Philippine military’s Camp Iranun.

Brig. Gen. Francisco Ariel Felicidario III, cochair of the newly installed Joint Peace and Security Committee (JPSC), said the JPST barracks in Camp Abubakar would be the first of 11 JPSC barracks to be built in seven provinces across Mindanao.

He said the facility would serve as headquarters of the first JPST team tasked to safeguard weapons turned over by members of the MILF who have undergone the process of decommissioning.

The firearms will be kept under the oversight of the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB), a Turkish-led group mandated to oversee the decommissioning of MILF combatants and their weapons. IDB is composed of representatives from the governments of Turkey, Norway, Kingdom of Brunei, and local experts nominated by the Philippine government and the MILF.

Bangsamoro struggle

The construction of the barracks is being funded by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp), in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme through its Support to Peacebuilding and Normalization Programme.

Opapp Undersecretary David Diciano, head of the joint normalization division and chair of the government’s peace implementing panel, said the construction of the barracks symbolized the “government’s desire to ensure the implementation of the security component of the CAB.”

“The decommissioned weapons you will be securing in this camp (Abubakar) represent decades of armed struggle of the Bangsamoro people. And now that (these firearms) have been put to rest, these will serve as reminder to all of us of the sacrifices made by our Moro brothers and sisters to uplift the lives of their people,” Diciano told JPST members.