WB allots $33 M for ARMM

The World Bank has provided financial aid worth $33 million to support the government’s commitment to establish "genuine" autonomy in Muslim Mindanao, President Arroyo said yesterday.

Mrs. Arroyo ordered the establishment of "one-stop shops" for land titling and processing of land patents of Muslim beneficiaries of the government’s land reform program in each of the five provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

She also gave a "search committee," headed by ARMM Gov. Parouk Hussin and Justice Secretary Simeon Datumanong, six months to study whom they would recommend to fill vacancies in various Shari’a courts.

The President instructed the search committee to recruit the best and the brightest legal luminaries from among the Shari’a practitioners.

The Chief Executive said these measures will complete the government’s commitment to establish "genuine autonomy" for the ARMM, in fulfillment of its 1996 peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

"As I have said many times before, I believe that unless we as a people come to terms with Mindanao, we will never attain our full promise as a nation," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo, who spent her teenage years in Iligan City, said she knows "the feelings and sentiments of the people of Mindanao in their desire to attain genuine and long-lasting peace."

The President, in her weekly radio message aired over the government-run Radyo ng Bayan, said the World Bank has given $33 million to the ARMM social fund.

Mrs. Arroyo said while she was in Cotabato City last Friday on the fourth leg of her week-long trip to Mindanao, she and World Bank country manager Robert Pulley discussed where the $33 million would be used.

Pulley told the President during their meeting at the Army’s 6th Infantry Division headquarters near the Awang airport in Cotabato City that the WB’s latest financial assistance is earmarked for various projects that include farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities and irrigation.

The five ARMM provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will benefit from the projects.

Mrs. Arroyo said the WB’s $33-million funding supports her Mindanao National Initiative (Mindanao Natin) program, which she formally launched during her Mindanao trip.

The Mindanao Natin initiative has also received funds from other sources, particularly $74 million from the United States Aid for International Development on top of the $50 million in support of the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Mindanao also gets the bulk of the $100 million aid from South Korea for the construction of the Lagindingan Airport in Misamis Oriental, and most of the $20 million assistance from Japan, Mrs. Arroyo said.

The President also led groundbreaking rites for a road project funded by the $20-million Kuwaiti Fund as well as the groundbreaking for the P10-million terminal building of the Pollok port in Cotabato City.

"The Mindanao Natin is a program specifically launched for the progress of Muslim Mindanao. This region is the poorest part of our country, which is said to be the breeding ground for terrorists," she said.

"We have focused our full attention and exhausted all aid to alleviate the lives of the people there and give them gainful jobs other than become servants for terrorists," Mrs. Arroyo added.

The President explained that she specifically wanted to highlight the Mindanao Natin program when she led the celebration of the 105th anniversary of Philippine Independence last Thursday in the cities of General Santos and Zamboanga.

"I deemed it appropriate to celebrate our Independence Day last June 12 in Mindanao because we want to give genuine fulfillment of the promise of true freedom," she said.

"We are determined to make the people of Mindanao feel that we belong to one nation, that they are in the mainstream of our nation’s future," Mrs. Arroyo vowed.

In Iligan City, where the President flew for the fifth leg of her Mindanao sortie, she said a "one-stop shop" for land titling and processing of land patents has already been put up in Cotabato City, the seat of the ARMM government.

She directed that one-stop shops be put up for each of the ARMM provinces to facilitate documentation of land titles and land patents for the Muslim beneficiaries of the government’s agrarian and urban land reform program.

Earlier, Pulley said the Philippines — "in one of the fastest turn-arounds in World Bank history" — went from worst to second best in East Asia in using portfolio assistance from the bank.

He noted that in 2001, when Mrs. Arroyo was swept into power by EDSA II, the Philippines was the "slowest user of World Bank assistance in the East Asia region."

Pulley underscored that when Mrs. Arroyo came into power, "the disbursement ratio was only 10 percent" which mean that the previous government "would have taken 10 years to utilize all (World Bank) aid in the pipeline.

Under the Arroyo administration, the utilization of aid made available by the WB jumped from 10 percent to 22 percent.

Pulley explained that the increase in utilization meant that projects undertaken with WB aid could now be completed in five years or less compared to the previous administration when projects took10 years to complete.

He further emphasized that the Philippine performance was only a shade lower than that of China’s 23 percent, considered "the benchmark in East Asia."

The World Bank executive credited line agencies like the Departments of Agrarian Reform, Agriculture, Education, Public Works and Highways and Social Welfare and Development for "fixing problems quickly and clearing away bottlenecks."