Governance now improving in`sensational' Shariff Aguak town

MAGUINDANAO — The new town government of Shariff Aguakhas been clearing flood-prone creeks and streams of silt and fixing town roads with new equipment purchased the last year, something never witnessed in decades past.In less than a year after being elected in May 2016, Mayor Marop Ampatuan and his father, Vice Mayor Akmad Ampatuan, have procured road-building equipment and rehabilitated close to 50 kilometers of dirt roads crisscrossing Shariff Aguak.The newly-fixed arterial networks in Shariff Aguak were virtually impassable during the rainy days.The new leaders' predecessors are now detained and are prosecuted for their alleged involvement in the infamous Nov. 23, 2009 Ampatuan massacre, which has been said to be the country’s worst case of election-related violence ever.Despite their money and extensive connections with government agencies, they did not even have a single garbage truck in the Shariff Aguak local government unit (LGU) which they held for about two decades. There was absolute neglect then. We just don’t want to talk anything about the past. Ours is a new beginning, a new dawn for this historic town that people outside of Maguindanao perceived as so troubled, Marop said on Thursday. The Shariff Aguak LGU now boasts of five dump trucks, a garbage truck, a backhoe loader, a road grader, a crawler-type backhoe excavator, and a road roller-compactor. These were purchased according to state accounting regulations, Marop said.Barangay officials and Senior Supt. Agustin Tello of the provincial police office have confirmed that Shariff Aguak has also been made drug free by its LGU.Local commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), locked in deadly feuds with the former governor of Maguindanao, the late Datu Andal Ampatuan, Sr., are now actively helping the Shariff Aguak LGU address the drug problem that went unchecked during the time of past municipal administrations. There is no animosity now between local MILF groups and the present mayor and vice mayor of Shariff Aguak, Tello said.He said it is only in Shariff Aguak, from among the 36 towns in Maguindanao, where residents voluntarily pay for the electric consumption of streetlights the mayor’s office had put up recently. You don’t see local officials now bringing around heavily-armed bodyguards when they go around. Mayor Marop goes around and talk to his constituents only wearing either ordinary clothes or his favorite basketball jersey attire, Tello said.The Maguindanao provincial police office is located in Shariff Aguak, less than a kilometer away from the town hall.Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu said he is fascinated with how the Shariff Aguak LGU is clearing silt and debris from the waterways straddling the town using heavy equipment run with diesel fuel donated by barangay leaders and local merchants.Owners of the oft-flooded farms along riverbanks are now tilling their lands without fear of inundation during rainy days. The LGU had saved about a hundred hectares of frequently-flooded farms near the town center by constructing flood diversion dikes and clearing rivers from silt and other obstructions, Mangudadatu said.The town's flood control efforts are being assisted by recovering drug dependents. They are now involved in peace and development initiatives in their communities, Mangudadatu said.Shariff Aguak was the seat of the political principality of the former Ampatuan patriarch Datu Andal, Sr. and his sons, Zaldy—a two-term regional governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao—and former Mayor Andal, Jr. of nearby Datu Unsay town.All of them were implicated in the Maguindanao massacre that left 58 people dead, among them Mangudadatu’s wife, Genalyn, and 32 journalists.