Gone are the days that Mindanao has scary connotations of conflict and terrorism.
Thus, said Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday, Sept. 4, as he expressed belief that the insurgency problem that has hounded the country’s southern island group is now coming to an end.
“Yes, I can say that the insurgency there is already at the outset of extinction considering that the Bangsamoro people already decided to reconcile with the government,” Galvez said during the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel media forum.
The peace adviser shared that the gains were the result of the national government’s efforts to win back Moro separatist groups, beginning with the signing of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to establish the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), up to the inking of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which led to the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Following the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) in 2018, which serves as the basis for the creation of the BARMM, Galvez said that incidents of kidnappings and other terror attacks have gone down.
“Maraming mga Abu Sayyaf, maraming mga kapatid tayo na Maute, BIFF (there are a lot of members of Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), our sisters and brothers from the Maute and BIFF [Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters], they decided already to lay down their firearms and reconcile with the government,” he noted.
Since the BOL’s ratification, Galvez said that 26,145 combatants from the MILF and 1,200 ASG and Maute fighters have been decommissioned while more than 4,000 firearms were decommissioned.
“Nakita natin na talagang ang mga tao, gusto na ang kapayapaan, gusto na nila yakapin ang kapayapaan kasi nakita po nila napakalaki ng potensyal ng Mindanao (We have seen that the people want to embrace peace because they realized that Mindanao has a lot of potential),” Galvez said.
According to Galvez, no major conflict has occurred in Mindanao since the 2017 Marawi siege.
He said that Sulu and Basilan have already been declared ASG-free while Tawi-Tawi is already conducive to national development after receiving “billions of investments” from the Asian Development Bank.
Now that peace has started to set in, Galvez said that economic development is starting to follow.
He said that Bangsamoro’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021 reached 7.5 percent, making it the second fastest moving region in terms of economic mobility. On the other hand, the poverty incidence went down from 56 percent to 26 percent.
“Nakikita natin gumaganda ang ekonomiya ng Bangsamoro (We have seen that the economy in Bangsamoro is improving). The whole Mindanao is really booming. The conflict is now ending and there is now a new beginning of peace and development in Mindanao,” Galvez said.