Historic southern island gets first ever telecoms tower

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Residents of the historic Sacol Island now have -- for the first time ever --- a telecommunications facility that connects them to the outside world.

Sacol is in between the territorial seas of Zamboanga City and the island province of Basilan in the Bangsamoro autonomous region.

Gerry Salapuddin, administrator of the Southern Philippines Authority, told reporters here Saturday he and other government officials inaugurated last October 8 the telecommunications tower in Sacol Island, something villagers in its four barangays had long wished for.

The telecommunications tower was built by the Department of Information and Communications Technology with the help of the SPDA, the Zamboanga City government and units of the military’s Western Mindanao Command.

Salapuddin said residents of Sacol Island, whose four barangays are under Zamboanga City, are grateful to DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy and his assistant secretary, Maria Teresa Camba, for responding to their request, channeled via the SPDA, to put up a telecommunications tower in the island.

“So hard was life for students there at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where classes were done online. There was no internet and telecommunications connectivity with schools to rely on,” Salapuddin said.

Zamboanga City Mayor John Dalipe, his brother, Rep. Manuel  Dalipe, and a senior member of the Bangsamoro parliament, Hatimil Hassan, attended the symbolic launching of the DICT facility in Sacol Island.

Salapuddin said the vice mayor of Zamboanga City, Josephine Pareja, and senior police and military officials also attended last week’s symbolic event.

A Muslim theologian, Ustadz Idris Ijam Sappayani of the Yakan Association of Zamboanga City, who helped prod the SPDA and the DICT to embark on the project, said they are thankful to both agencies for responding to their clamors for such facility.

“Residents of Sacol Island shall forever be thankful to the people behind this project,” Sappayani said via text message, sent directly from the island.

Salapuddin, former most senior leader of the Moro National Liberation Front in Basilan before he became governor and congressional representative in the province, said Sacol Island was their safe haven and “stopover” as they moved around the island province, in the Zamboanga peninsula and in the Sulu seas while fighting the government in the 1970s.

Contemporary historians said seafaring merchants, using sailboats, from what are now cities of Zamboanga and Isabela in Basilan had sought refuge in Sacol Island whenever weather turned bad during trading voyages.

In a message during the launching of the newly-built telecommunications tower, Dalipe, first termer mayor of Zamboanga City, assured Sacol Island residents of humanitarian and socio-economic projects in their barangays.