ZAMBOANGA CITY, 19 September 2005 — Every now and then, Western embassies in Manila, notably the US mission, issue advisories warning their citizens against traveling to the Philippines’ southern region of Mindanao.
While these are met with the usual protest by the Philippine government, the warnings are not unfounded. Kidnap-for-ransom cases and bombings remain prevalent especially in the southern provinces where the extremist Abu Sayyaf and plain bandits abound.
To the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), however, Mindanao is one place where it’s worth putting its money on.
It is in Mindanao where there is great return on investments, USAID mission director Jon Lindborg said in a recent visit to Zamboanga City and the island of Basilan.
“The enterprise is very much alive here in Mindanao and despite the series of challenges they (USAID workers) were able to meet them,” he said.
Lindborg said Mindanao will continue to be the main beneficiary of the aid the United States is pouring annually to the Philippines in an effort to help develop the troubled region, often used as springboard for terror attacks by the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group.
Mindanao gets most of the $9 million annual assistance to the Philippines, mostly on development projects.
“Of the $9 million annual assistance of USAID to Philippines, Mindanao gets 60 percent of the fund,” he said.
Filipino troops, backed by US military forces, are battling not only the Abu Sayyaf group but also the local communist insurgents New People’s Army (NPA) and rogue members of the country’s largest separatist rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network.
Manila is also now focusing its development projects in Mindanao and at the same time stepping up security operations to bring peace and order and attract investors in the timber and mineral-rich region.
A current USAID project in Mindanao called Education Quality and Access for Learning and Livelihood Skills (Equalls) are expected to benefit thousands of who are either elementary or high school dropouts.
In August, Lindborg accompanied by US Chargé d’Affaires to Manila Darryl Johnson and USAID economic development and governance chief Robert Wuertz, inaugurated a sea port and donated boxes of books to a government-run school in Basilan, a depressed province where the Abu Sayyaf was born.
Johnson’s group also handed over to Filipino officials a 70-meter hanging foot built by US and Filipino troops in Lizon Valley in the outskirts of Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur province.
Called the Bayanihan Bridge, officials said it costs more than $12,000 and built over several weeks.
Aside from Equalls, USAID also launched its Computer Literacy and Internet Connection or CLIC program that is concentrated in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao. It has so far benefited about 125,000 students in more than 200 schools.
Through its solar energy program, USAID had also brought electricity to remote islands in Tawi-Tawi province and nearby places.
Other USAID projects in Mindanao include the Alliance for Mindanao Off-Grid Renewable Energy (Amore) which helps provide power to small and rural villages, and the Livelihood Enhancement and Peace (Leap) program that help assist former members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) make the transition from guerrillas to productive farmers and fishermen. Leap has helped more than 24,000 former rebels in Mindanao.
