Rep. Gomez slams OPAPRU over missing list of decommissioned MILF forces

Leyte Rep. Richard Gomez during the House briefing on the Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity.

MANILA, Philippines — Leyte Rep. Richard Gomez has slammed the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity (OPAPRU) over the lack of transparency and accountability in the decommissioning of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) combatants.

Gomez, during Monday’s House briefing on the state of the peace process and peace and order situation in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), said the OPAPRU should have been more eagle-eyed in ensuring that the government is not placed at a disadvantage in the implementation of the normalization track of the peace agreement between the government and the MILF.

“There should be accountability in the disbursement of government funds. The government cannot just allocate and release funds without being fully informed of who are the recipients of government support, without knowing who have availed of the decommissioning program. It is our duty as lawmakers and public leaders to scrutinize how public funds are spent and if such expenditures are advantageous to the government,” the lawmaker said as he hit OPAPRU after it admitted that it does not have a list of the combatants who have given up their weapons and returned to the folds of the government.

The OPAPRU, during the briefing, told lawmakers it does not have a copy of the list of decommissioned combatants, which it said was prepared and vetted by the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB) that was created by the government and the MILF to oversee the process of decommissioning of MILF forces and their weapons. According to the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the IDB is an integral part of the normalizing structure.

The IDB told lawmakers that 24,844 out of the 40,000 targeted MILF combatants have so far been decommissioned, with 4,625 firearms turned over to the government.

“It’s surprising that even the basic process of having a general list of the decommissioned combatant is missing. The government is already spending hundreds of millions of pesos to improve the lives of the combatants, but we do not even know who they are. It’s been years and we have been spending so much money without identifying who these people are. There’s a list but foreigners are holding the list… What is this?! It gives me the suspicion that they are funding something,” Gomez said.

Gomez likewise questioned the lack of a strict monitoring mechanism to ensure that those who have been “decommissioned” have not abused the goodwill of the government.

“What is our way of monitoring these people?  Paano natin masisiguro na hindi sila babalik sa kampo nila, lalabanan uli ang gobyerno pagkatapos makuha ang benepisyo?  How do you monitor these people? How sure are you they will not go back (to being combatants) and fire against the government? Where did IDB use the financial list? Is it for financial assistance for livelihood? Or is it financial assistance to sustain small wars? What? Let us know so we know. I’d like to know,” he said.

Gomez stressed that lawmakers cannot fully support the government’s peace process programs without knowing who are benefiting from them.

“If we in the government don’t know who these people are, why should we continue supporting them? These are the questions that pop up in my mind. That is the kind of process they do: Tayo sa gobyerno, bigay lang tayo ng bigay ng tulong sa kanila, sa mga na-decommissioned. Pero hindi natin alam sino sila. What is our monitoring mechanism to know where they are now? Where are these people right now? Where are they living?” he added.

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