Mindanao LGU execs want more Army-police-MILF basketball games

COTABATO CITY — Various sectors are wishing for a replication in other provinces of last week’s basketball games among soldiers, policemen and former guerillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front at the Army’s nearby Camp Siongco, Mindanao’s largest military installation.  

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr. on Sunday said that he wants the 103rd Infantry Brigade in Marawi City, his constituent-MILF leaders and the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office to also host a basketball friendship game in any of the towns under his jurisdiction, like what organizers did last December 14 at the gymnasium of the 6th Infantry Division in Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte.

“We, the elected officials in Lanao del Sur supports all activities that can make strong the peace process of Malacañang with Moro communities in Mindanao,” Adiong, whose administration covers Marawi City and 39 towns in Lanao del Sur, where there are MILF bastions, said.

The basketball games last week, participated by soldiers, policemen and MILF members at the Camp Siongco gymnasium, were facilitated by the commander of 6th ID, Major Gen. Alex Rillera, Bangsamoro regional police director Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, the United States Institute of Peace and staff members of the Strategic Communications and Capacity Building Project.

A member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament, the lawyer Suharto Ambolodto, said on Sunday morning that such sports events, involving policemen, soldiers and their former enemies, is good for the national government’s Mindanao peace efforts.

“That basketball game is a direct support for the peace, reconciliation and unity promotion goals of the government and the MILF. We ought to thank the 6th ID and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region for helping make that come true," Ambolodto said. 

Central Mindanao residents are so aware of the deep-seated hostility  between the MILF and the 6th ID in decades past. The animosity ended after Malacañang and the MILF crafted two compacts, the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro, and, subsequently, the 2014 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro, after 22 years of peace talks. 

Both agreements paved the way for the replacement in 2019 of the then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more administratively and politically empowered Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, whose chief minister is the chairman of the MILF’s central committee, Ahod B. Ebrahim.

“We can also have these basketball games in our province. My administration supports the efforts of the MILF and the government to sustain the gains of the Mindanao peace process,” Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Mendoza said on Saturday. She is the presiding chairperson of the inter-agency, multi-sector Regional Development Council 12.

Basilan Gov. Hadjiman Salliman said that his office is also ready to support any Army-MILF basketball game in any gymnasium in their province, where members of the front and local government units are cooperating in addressing domestic peace and security issues.

"Such activities can also show to prospective investors from around the country and abroad that it is safe now to venture into capital-intensive projects in our province, Basilan," Salliman said.