Venues of 2009 massacre commemoration and ARMM charter day secured

COTABATO CITY --- Authorities have cordoned to ward off saboteurs the venues of two important events this week both with big relevance to the Mindanao peace process.Hundreds of elected officials, local and foreign dignitaries, leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission are expected to attend what could possibly be the last commemoration here on Monday of the 28thfounding anniversary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.The event shall be capped off with the state of the region address of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and the inauguration of the operations center of the Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team, most known as HEART, inside the 32-hectare regional capitol.Personnel of the Police Regional Office-ARMM and the Army’s 5thSpecial Forces Battalion are now positioned around the regional capitol in southeast of Cotabato City to ensure the safety of guests.Laisa Masuhud-Alamia, ARMM’s executive secretary, said on Sunday that Hataman is convinced that Monday’s 28thregional charter day of the autonomous region could be the last.Masuhud-Alamia said Hataman is convinced that Congress will approve before 2019 the Bangsamoro Basic Law, the enabling measure for the replacement of ARMM with a more politically and administratively empowered Bangsamoro government.The proposed creation of the Bangsamoro entity is based on two compacts between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front --- the 2013 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.In a statement Saturday, Hataman, now in his second term as regional governor, reiterated his readiness to facilitate a smooth transition from ARMM to an MILF-led Bangsamoro region if its creation, through BBL’s enactment into law, would cut his term short.The ARMM, which has a regional charter, the Republic Act 9054, has an executive department under the Office of the Regional Governor and a separate 24-member Regional Assembly, touted as little Congress of the autonomous region.Only Congress, through the BBL as an enabling measure, can repeal R.A. 9054.Soldiers and policemen have also secured the premises of the newly-constructed HEART operations center which regional officials and guests will inaugurate on Monday. Records obtained from HEART officials indicated that the agency, created through an executive order issued by Hataman in 2013, has since provided relief services to at least two million conflict and calamity-stricken people in the ARMM and in provinces in Region 10 and in the Visayas that were hit by typhoons recently.The HEART saw extensive action during the five-month siege of Marawi City by combined Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists. The Army’s 6thInfantry Division and the police have also started securing the scene of the infamous November 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre in Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan town where local sectors are to commemorate on Thursday the 7thanniversary of the carnage.Ampatuan municipality is located in the second district of Maguindanao, about 60 kilometers south of Cotabato City.Captain Arvin Encinas, public affairs officer of 6thID, said units of the division will provide guests with a two-kilometer protection radius while at Barangay Masalay on November 23.Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose wife, Genalyn, perished in the massacre, will lead the activities at the site of the incident, touted as the country’s worst election-related violence ever.The slain Genalyn left the governor eight children, the eldest, Jhazzer, now an incumbent member of the Maguindanao provincial board. I wish our children and all the relatives of other massacre victims would see the wheel of justice roll over the culprits during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte. I’m hoping that would happen before I bow down from public service when my third and last term ends in 2019, Mangudadatu said.The victims, among them 38 journalists, were in a convoy proceeding to the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak town to deliver Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy for governor during the May 2010 elections when alleged members of the Ampatuan clan flagged them down.The suspects, backed by their private militia, herded them to a hilly area in Sitio Salman in Barangay Masalay where they were killed using machineguns and assault rifles.The patriarch then of the Ampatuan family, former Gov. Andal Ampatuan, Sr., who died of liver cancer while in detention in connection with the massacre, did not want the supposed candidacy for the same post of his son, Andal, Jr., challenged by any contender.The peace accord between the government and the MILF is partly focused on promoting the political empowerment of Moro sectors through a disarmament campaign to prevent bloody forays among Moro clans competing for elective positions in southern provinces. My clan supports the peace process because we believe in its propriety and its being centered on healing and dispensation of justice to those who suffered from the consequences of the Mindanao conflict, Mangudadatu said.Mangudadatu said there would have been no Maguindanao massacre incident to hound the province if not for the past administration’s having allowed a Maguindanaon political clan to stockpile military-type firearms and organize private militias to fight the MILF.