MNLF members receive P25M in agri equipment
GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 6 December) – Members of the Moro National Liberation Front received 15 agricultural equipment worth P25 million in turnover rites Tuesday at the Laktanan Reflex Garden inside the Mindanao State University campus here.
The equipment included eight tractors, six rice combine harvesters, one corn sheller, and farming implements as part of the MNLF Transformation Program.
These were handed over to priority communities in Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani Province, and Cotabato City by MSU-General Santos and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU).
The initiative is aimed at transitioning combatants into peaceful and reproductive members of society and seeks to carry out unimplemented provisions of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement.
“Peace is a basic foundation of development and prosperity. Kung walang peace, walang development and prosperity,” OPAPRU Chair Secretary Carlito G. Galvez Jr. said in his speech.
A partnership for peace
Dr. Mario J. Aguja, program head of the OPAPRU-MSU partnership, explained that the collaboration between the two institutions is crucial to the ongoing peacebuilding efforts, particularly within MNLF communities.
“Our program is part of the unfolding narratives of peace, the history of the Bangsamoro that many of us are part of and also experienced the problem of war,” he said in Filipino, noting that many individuals in these communities have firsthand experience with the challenges of conflict.
The distribution of farming equipment is one of the 74 approved projects implemented by MSU to support MNLF communities, with a focus on agricultural and fishery sectors identified through community profiling.
MSU has also aided in profiling MNLF combatants, enabling the development of scholarship programs for their families and facilitating the process of obtaining legal identification, according to Aguja.
Sad but thankful
Having transitioned from a life of conflict to peace, MNLF brigade commander Abusamah Agao, 59, from Maguindanao del Sur viewed the new equipment with a mix of gratitude and sadness.
Agao’s life as a combatant for 24 years began when he was seven in 1972 and ended upon the signing of the 1996 peace agreement between the government and MNLF.
“We had many comrades that we no longer see now. But we’re thankful that we’re being prioritized, that’s why we will take care of them,” Agao said in Filipino, alluding to the equipment that he described as the fruit of struggle.
He said taking care of the equipment will serve as a means of paying tribute to his comrades who already passed. “If the MNLF and the government can no longer agree, it would be a waste of our lives, of the youth who won’t see true peace,” he said. (Guia Rebollido/MindaNews)
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