Cotabato City folk hit scrapping of USAID-funded project

COTABATO CITY — Leaders of different sectors here staged an indignation rally yesterday to protest the suspension of a P54-million, US-funded road project here due to the alleged presence of foreign terrorists in the city.

Preachers condemned the action of the US embassy in different mosques and urged worshippers to pray for the enlightenment of US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone and officials of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the supposed conduit of the road project.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, secretary general of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), said it was Michael Yates, USAID executive director, who informed him in a letter last Tuesday that the US government had decided not to push through with the project due the presence of foreign terrorists in the city.

Sema branded the USAID’s action as "malicious and discriminatory."

Key members of the city’s business community, among them Chinese traders, said they are worried about the impact of USAID’s action on the local investment climate.

"This sad thing developed at a time when we are trying our best to project to our contacts abroad that it is safe now to invest in Central Mindanao because the peace talks between the government and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) have been improving," said Pete Marquez of the Metro Cotabato Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

For his part, Antonio Santos, chairman of the Mindanao Business Council, said, "We are praying that everything can still be ironed out, with all parties peacefully resolving this constraint."

Sema snubbed Ricciardone when the latter visited the city Wednesday after learning about USAID’s cancellation of the road project.

Sema said he decided not to meet Ricciardone at the airport and accompany him in his inspection of local USAID projects in protest of the agency’s suspension of the road network project that could have interconnected several barangays here.

Sema said Maj. Raul Relano, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Senior Superintendent Sukarno Ikbala of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao can both attest to how his administration has been helping authorities track down suspected foreign terrorists in Central Mindanao and other areas where MNLF forces are scattered.