COTABATO CITY — Government officials, including two assistants of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., declared Basilan as absolutely liberated from the Abu Sayyaf terror group via a symbolic rite on Monday morning.
Army Major Gen. Antonio G. Nafarrete, commander of the Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom) and Brig. Romeo J. Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR), separately told reporters on Monday that credit for the feat should go to Gov. Hadjiman H. Salliman and Basilan Rep. Mujiv S. Hataman, the 101st Infantry Brigade, and the Basilan Provincial Police Office.
“To all of them we are grateful,” Mr. Nafarrete said.
The event, held at Basilan’s provincial capitol at the border of the adjoining cities of Isabela and Lamitan, was capped off with the destruction of hundreds of assault rifles, some of which were collected from Abu Sayyaf members who surrendered in recent years. The others were voluntarily turned in by Basilan residents in support of the Small Arms and Light Weapons Management Program of the WestMinCom and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity.
Presidential Assistant for Peace Reconciliation and Unity Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. and Special Assistant to the President Antonio Ernesto F. Lagdameo, participated in the activity.
Mr. Salliman, who was elected vice governor during the May 12 elections, said it was for the cooperation of the 101st Infantry Brigade under Brig. Gen. Alvin V. Luzon, all units of PRO-BAR in the province, the Police Regional Office-9, traditional and religious leaders and local executives that their province had become totally free from Abu Sayyaf terrorists.
Mr. Saliman said besides the police and the military, two groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front also supported their effort of addressing the Abu Sayyaf problem that hounded Basilan for more than two decades.
All of the Abu Sayyaf members who returned to the fold of law had been reintroduced to the local communities, now thriving peacefully as workers in agricultural plantations, as entrepreneurs, fishermen and laborers in markets and as construction workers. — John Felix M. Unson
