Creation of peace and security task force for Maguindanao mulled

MAGUINDANAO -- The provincial government and the military will establish a Maguindanao Task Force that would focus on security initiatives needed to boost the investment climate in the province.

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, chairman of the provincial peace and order council, and Major Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division agreed to jointly organize the task force at the sideline of an Islamic symposium in Buluan town last Sunday.
The symposium was an activity of the 6th ID. It was held at the Buluan municipal gymnasium, attended by about 5,000 Islamic missionaries and students.The three-hour religious event, capped off with dialogues among speakers and participants, was meant to publicly disseminate needed diplomatic and religious interventions that can contain the rise of local militant groups in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.Three resource persons, Abdul Lantong from the Cotabato City State Polytechnic College and clerics Teng Alem and Esmail Ebrahim, took turns explaining to participants relevant Islamic teachings on governance, the importance of co-existence with non-Muslims and cultural solidarity among people of various religions and races.Mangudadatu said he is keen on expanding by at least three-folds the now 6,000-slot college scholarship thrust of his office, dubbed Maguindanao Program for Education and Community Empowerment, to prevent the spread of Islamic militancy in the province. No way can religious extremism spread in the province if we have more educated and productive people, he said.

Mangudadatu said one strategy of addressing religious extremism squarely is to generate livelihood employment for jobless ethnic Maguindanaons. And so there is a need to secure our potential agricultural hubs for investors to come in without apprehensions on their safety. They must not be worried of the safety of the capitals they are to pour in too, he said.Galvez said the envisioned Maguindanao Task Force must also participate in humanitarian and peace-building activities complementing the Mindanao peace process of President Rodrigo Duterte.Mangudadatu said he wants the task force to have direct coordination with the joint ceasefire committee of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).The committee, helping enforce a government-MILF ceasefire in flashpoint areas in Mindanao for more than a decade now, is comprised of representatives from the rebel group, the police and the military. We should uphold the primacy of the peace process while we make the province safe for investors. We should also involve the ceasefire committee in addressing religious extremism, Mangudadatu said.Lt. Col. Markton Abo, civil-military relations chief of 6th ID, said Galvez and Mangudadatu will jointly embark on more dialogues with the Islamic and Christian religious sectors in support of Malacañang’s bid to nip Islamic militancy in southern Mindanao from its bud.Abo, one of the organizers of Sunday’s Islamic symposium, said representatives from the Christian communities shall also be tapped to speak in upcoming religious dialogues intended to foster cohesion among Maguindanao’s Muslim, Christian and Lumad sectors.Abo said Mangudadatu is even ready to pay for radio airtime for moderate Muslim clerics to have an effective medium they can use in educating the public on the irreconcilable contrast of ISIS-style religious extremism with Islamic teachings on religious tolerance and respect for non-Muslims.