‘Security woes in S. Mindanao can be solved through modernization’

CAMP ABUBAKAR, Maguindanao — The government can best address the nagging security problems in Southern Mindanao if it will allocate a big chunk of the proposed Armed Forces‚ modernization fund for road-building equipment needed by military engineering units working in hostile areas, Army engineers in the province said.

Military officials in Central Mindanao are convinced that underdevelopment and poverty, due to lack of infrastructure facilities needed to improve farmer‚ productivity, are the main causes of the nagging security problems in the region and elsewhere.

Col. Eduardo Lena, chief of the Amy’s 54th Engineer Construction Brigade, which is overseeing rehabilitation projects in this former bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said their accomplishments in rebuilding this erstwhile guerilla enclave into a progressive farming community can provide legislators and their superiors in the AFP "a good thesis" on cost-efficient means of fostering peace in hostile areas.

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.

Among these projects is a 70-meter footbridge, made of steel cables and metal matting, connecting a stretch of a farm-to-market road to a former lair of the MILF’s National Guards, lead by leaders known to have "dog’s loyalty" to the front’s reclusive chieftain Hashim Salamat.