At last, Green Governance! Congratulations CM Ebrahim!

COTABATO CITY – Bangsamoro interim Chief Minister Ahod “Hadji Murad” Balawag Ebrahim launched on Saturday a two-pronged program designed to tap some of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF’s) 40,000 ex-combatants to help keep peace and reforest denuded forest lands in the areas of regional autonomy.

Unprecedented in the history of global reforestation campaign, the Integrated Bangsamoro Greening Program (IBGP) was formally unveiled at the Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao-based Camp Darapanan, the MILF’s main enclave, to roll out on Dec. 1 this year initially in Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao.

“Dapat mapangalagaan ang ating likas na yaman sapagkat isa ito sa ipinaglaban natin nang mahabang panahon. Karapatan ng susunod na henerasyon na may abutan pang yaman ng ating Bangsamoro homeland, partikular na ang mga likas nitong yaman,” Ebrahim, concurrent MILF central committee chairman, was quoted as saying in his ceremonial message.

Vast virgin forests in Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao, both component-provinces of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), had been covered by logging concessions granted under the Marcos regime to surrendering commanders of the then undivided Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The MILF led by the late Sheikh Salamat Hasim sprang from the MNLF in early 1980s.

The IBGP initially aims to reforest 10,000 hectares of open and denuded forests in the two mainland provinces, said regional Executive Secretary Abdulraof macacua, concurrent Minister of Environment Natural Resources and Energy (MENRE).

Macacua, more known as Sammy Gambar Almansoor in his reign as chief of staff of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), the MILF’s military wing, accompanied Chief Minister Ebrahim during Saturday’s program launch.

Abdullah Cusain, deputy executive director at the Chief Minister’s office, said the IBGP is one of the priority programs of the BARMM government aimed at harnessing some of the BIAF forces in peacekeeping and reforestation efforts.

In an earlier statement, Minister Macacua said the IBGP will initially hire 400 of the BIAF field forces, who would not be covered yet in the decommissioning process under one of the annexes of the government-MILF peace accords of 2013 and 2014.

The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPAPP) and the MILF have already decommissioned close to 1,000 BIAF ex-fighters trained alongside police and military elements to form the Joint Peace and Security Teams (JPSTs) tasked to secure BARMM activities and all state-recognized MILF communities.

Macacua and BARMM spokesperson cum Minister of Local Government Naguib Sinarimbo said the transformation of BIAF forces into the JPST and IBGP operations will be essential in preventing displeasure or disenchantment under the MILF-government peace accords, which were the basis of Congress in enacting R.A. 11054 in July last year for President Duterte to officially establish the BARMM bureaucracy and parliament last March 29.

“Several MILF field forces and their commanders could not be accommodated in the bureaucracy for lack necessary qualifications…Infusing unqualified persons in the BARMM bureaucracy will defeat our purpose of building effective and moral regional bureaucracy,” Sinarimbo once told the Manila Bulletin. (Ali G. Macabalang)