COTABATO CITY — Former beachfront enclaves of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in Sulu have been operating as tourist attractions in the past two years with hoping to draw more now that they have been dubbed as “peace villages” by local security officials.
The entire province of Sulu was declared “Abu Sayyaf-free” by the multi-sectoral Sulu Provincial Peace and Order Council last month, Army Lt. Gen. Steve D. Crespillo, head of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, said on Sunday.
“Their strongholds got transformed into ‘peace villages’ and those Abu Sayyaf members who had returned to mainstream society are the ones protecting these areas now from incursions by bad people,” Brig. Gen. Allan C. Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, added.
Michael A. Macion, the regional coordinator for hospital management and concerns of the Bangsamoro Health Ministry, confirmed that during a recent tour of health facilities in Sulu, his team was toured to the beaches of Parang town, where the calm and peace were very much felt.
The Abu Sayyaf, founded in Basilan by the religious extremist Abduradjak Janjalani, once held bastions in most of the 18 towns in Sulu. But in the last six years, Mr. Crespillo said more than 400 Abu Sayyaf members have surrendered through the facilitation of local authorities.
A member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament, the lawyer Hadji Nabil A. Tan, said the deployment about three years ago in Sulu of an Army battalion comprised of Tausug personnel proved critical in the weakening of the Abu Sayyaf in the province.
“They (Abu Sayyaf gunmen) avoided getting into actual combat with soldiers who speak our common vernacular and are warriors, too, who shall fight for pride and honor, for the Philippine flag,” Mr. Tan, who was born and raised in Sulu, said.
A Cotabato City-based orthopedic surgeon, Mr. Macion attested: “I and my companions were so impressed. Our hosts, health ministry employees in the province and chief of the Integrated Provincial Health Office there, Doctor Farah Tan-Omar, toured us around and we went to a very nice beach resort in Parang municipality and enjoyed a lot while we were there.
Mr. Nobleza said they are grateful to the Bangsamoro Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG) for its continuing capacity-building programs for LGUs in Sulu and other essential interventions being facilitated by the office of Regional Local Government Minister Naguib G. Sinarimbo.
At present, the MILG is constructing a P25-million reformatory center in Barangay Langhub in Patikul, Sulu that shall function as a livelihood skills learning and religious reorientation facility for violent religious extremists who have returned to the fold of law, particularly former members of the Abu Sayyaf. — John Felix M. Unson
