P63.5 M earmarked for 3 Sallam bridges

COTABATO CITY — Malacañang and the British government have earmarked P63.5 million for the construction, under the Sallam (Peace) Bridge Project, of three steel bridges connecting isolated Muslim-dominated areas to the city proper to complement the Southern Mindanao peace process.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema and Guialuson Mamogkat of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) signed here yesterday a memorandum of agreement on the construction of the steel bridges, which will use British technology and materials, to connect three barangays here to the city’s commercial districts.

Sema said the first to be built is the bridge that would connect Barangays Bagua I and Bagua II, where thousands of Muslims reside.

The two other bridges would link the districts of Kamasi and Kimpo to surrounding barangays.

"These bridges will surely improve the economy in the city," Sema said.

The British government has bankrolled the construction of more than a hundred Sallam bridges in the ARMM since the signing of the Sept. 2, 1996 peace pact between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Sema, MNLF secretary-general, said the city government has been convincing foreign donors to fund viable economic and political projects here to complement the Mindanao peace process, which is centered on the empowerment of impoverished Moro communities.