Newly built stairway now connects Lanao Sur to other towns

COTABATO CITY – The scenic Lanao Lake has never been so conveniently accessible to residents of Madalum, Lanao del Sur until they built a 220-meter stairway traversing a hill that stood between their village and the lake, which is the country’s largest.

Ethnic Maranaws in Barangay Cabsaran in Madalum, a remote town in Lanao del Sur, which is a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, can now take a bath and fetch water from the lake which is, for them, an important icon of their traditional identity, as a result of the construction of the stairway.  

Zenaida Ampaso, social welfare officer of Madalum, said the stairway, which has more than 400 steps, was built through bayanihan by local residents with the help of the World Bank, through the ARMM Social Fund Project.

“We’ve had many accidents in the past as a consequence of people trying to go to the shores of Lake Lanao by climbing over the hill separating the lake from their villages,” Ampaso said.

She said the stairway, which also has safety railings, is now a tourist attraction.

A Maranaw farmer, Masiragan Boransing, 50, said his wife can now go to one side of the majestic Lanao Lake to wash their clothes.

The ASFP, which is under the ministerial control of the executive department of ARMM, has dozens of costly projects bankrolled by the World Bank and the Japan Bank on International Cooperation, in far-flung communities in the autonomous region.

The provincial governor of Lanao del Sur, Mamintal Adiong Jr., said projects of the ASFP, jointly managed by ARMM Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan and lawyer Mustapha Sambo­lawan, has ushered in considerable improvements in the economy of their province.

“We are grateful to the ASFP and its benefactors, the World Bank and the Japanese government, for giving us projects that hasten the Mindanao peace process,” Adiong said.

The ASFP’s stairway project in Barangay Cabsaran made accessible the lakeside towns in the province to Filipino and US soldiers that provided free medical and dental services to poor Maranaws during a series of humanitarian missions early this year.