Former Basilan shabu hotspot safer than before

BASILAN -- With new infrastructures everywhere, residents of the former shabu capital of this province are optimistic of an upswing in the local economy that got stymied by decades of poor governance.The seaside Maluso town twice received in two years the coveted Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) citation from the central office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government in recognition of the efficient peace and socio-economic initiatives of its local government unit.So troubled was Maluso town in the past that besides being the main transshipment point for shabu, or methamphetamine hydrochloride, in Basilan, it was also locked in deadly clan wars for decades.Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Saturday credit for the improvements in Maluso in the past two years should go to crusading elected officials and community elders supportive of the government’s anti-narcotics campaign and other domestic law enforcement activities. There is now a functional municipal peace and order council in Maluso and for that the community is rising from violence and poverty condoned by peace and order problems, Mijares said.Members of the inter-agency council, which formulates security policies complementing the peacekeeping missions of the police and military in Maluso, include Muslim and Christian religious leaders and representatives from the local business sector.The Maluso LGU is now constructing a municipal operations center in an upland area, far from its town proper that has been bereft of a presentable town hall since its creation in the early 1970s. This facility shall be an icon of governance in this municipality, Maluso Mayor Hanie Bud, who was ARMM’s regional ports manager before he became mayor in 2016, said on Saturday.Bud said the high-ticket projects in Maluso of the ARMM regional government, among them a seaport and the concreting of thoroughfares crisscrossing the province, have ushered in considerable improvements in the local economy.Ariel Castillo, chairman of Barangay Townsite in the heart of Maluso, said among their main concerns now is to prevent drug dealers that have moved out from coming back.Mijares said the DILG central office would not grant the LGU of Maluso the SGLG for 2017 and 2018 had the local drug trade continued proliferating in the municipality in a scale that got for it the tag shabu capital of Basilan.Bud said he and his constituent-municipal and barangay officials are thankful to the executive department of ARMM for providing funds for the construction of a new town hall from where their LGU’s governance thrusts can takeoff. From this municipal center we can oversee more socio-economic and other humanitarian projects that can hasten the recovery of Maluso from conflicts and other security woes, Bud said.