Army engineers build new road to Abubakar

CAMP ABUBAKAR, Maguindanao — Extreme security constraints have not stopped Army engineers from building a new 28-kilometer alternate artery — traversing ambush sites — linking this former bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to nearby municipalities where local farmers can market their harvests.

Named "friendship road," the route now connects this former guerilla enclave, converted two years ago into a "peace zone," to trading areas in Parang, Maguindanao, previously linked to farming communities here only by the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway.

The new thoroughfare traverses farming communities in Barira town which MILF forces controlled in the past.

Col. Eduardo Lena, commander of the Army’s 54th Engineer Brigade, said it was for the confidence-building efforts of their units, that they have succeeded in implementing the project.

Since this former MILF stronghold fell to government control on July 9, 2000, the 54th ECB and its component units, the 512 and the 548 Engineer Construction Battalions and the elite Engineer Support Battalion, have implemented 140 infrastructure projects here using grants from different line agencies. — John Unson