More Yakan families benefit from BRIDGE food aid

BASILAN - Ninety more marginalized families, some related to hardcore members of the Abu Sayyaf, got food aidfrom a pro-poor program addressing neglect and poverty in far-flung barrios.The activity early this week of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao-Bangsamoro Regional Inclusive Development for Growth and Empowermentprogram in Barangays Calut and Mahawid in Tuburan, Basilan was led by the regional and provincial officials.Also present in the food distribution event besides ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and senior regional officials were Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman, Tuburan Mayor Durie Kallahal and the provincial coordinator of ARMM-BRIDGE, Ahmad Julian Ibama.The ARMM-BRIDGE, being bankrolled by the office of Hataman, is focused on providing impoverished barangays in the autonomous region with four basic amenities – food, clean water, shelter and electricity.The ARMM-BRIDGE program, whose manager is David Ali, has distributed food to 6,000 families in the autonomous region in recent months.It is also constructing now hundreds of core shelters for poor beneficiaries, among them now reforming members of the Islamic State-inspired Abu Sayyaf.Lt. Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of the Western Mindanao Command, which has jurisdiction over Basilan, said Monday projects of the ARMM-BRIDGE are helping lure hardcore militants into the fold of law.More than 200 Abu Sayyaf gunmen in Basilan surrendered to the police and the military in the past 24 months.Dela Vega said they yielded through the joint intercession of ARMM and provincial officials relying on humanitarian projects to prove sincerity in addressing poverty and underdevelopment in their lairs.Hataman had told recipients of the food supplies, mostly ethnic Yakan families in Tuburan, ARMM’s effort to address poverty in all five provinces of the autonomous region is being complemented with domestic peace initiatives by local government units and massive infrastructure interventions by the regional public works department.