A number of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters from Lanao del Norte have been decommissioned, contrary to a claim by Rep. Khalid Q. Dimaporo of the province’s 1st District.
Dimaporo made the claim after Secretary Rex Gatchalian of the Department of Social Welfare and Development presented the agency’s proposed budget for 2024 to the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives on August 17.
The congressman said: “The MILF have [sic] not been decommissioned in Lanao del Norte. When we discussed this with the MILF leaders during the last congress, and sinabi nila, ang may kasalanan is DSWD (they said the fault lies with DSWD). The DSWD is very slow in doing case studies. So I would like a clarification on this. And I will not bring it up here in the budget briefing in favor of tradition, and I will not bring it up in the plenary in support of our majority, but instead I will talk to the secretary personally.”
“But I would like this placed on the record so my constituency in the province of Lanao del Norte can hear and can see that we are trying to do our very best to ensure that peace will prevail under the BBM (Bongbong Marcos) administration,” he added.
That portion of the video of the budget briefing where Dimaporo made the claim was posted in his Facebook page on October 11, and has generated 144,000 views, 605 shares, 380 comments and 6,300 reactions as of 3 p.m. Monday, October 16.
But in a news article posted on its website on March 18, 2020, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) said that of the 12,000 MILF combatants who were decommissioned under phase two of the decommissioning process, 986 were from Lanao del Norte.
“Under phase two of the decommissioning process, 5,361 combatants were decommissioned from the Darapanan cluster; 1,691 from Lanao del Sur cluster; 1,100 from Salman cluster; 986 from Lanao del Norte cluster; 954 from Rajamuda cluster; 848 from Old Maganoy cluster; 742 from Davao del Norte cluster; and 318 from Al-barka cluster,” the article reads.
According to the same article, each of the decommissioned combatants received a total of P100,000 in transitory cash assistance, P80,000 from the Bangsamoro Transitory Family Support Package and P20,000 from the Livelihood Settlement Grant, a fund that was created in partnership between the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (now the OPAPRU) and the DSWD.
The second phase of the decommissioning process began on August 28, 2019, and ended in March 2020.
The state-run Philippine Information Agency, citing the OPAPRU, reported last April 30 that around 400 decommissioned and non-decommissioned MILF combatants received their Certificates of Live Birth through the Access to Legal Identity and Social Services for Decommissioned Combatants (ALIAS-DC) Project on April 27, 2023 in Camp Bilal in Munai, Lanao del Norte.
ALIAS-DC is being implemented by the Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment Through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS) Program, with funding from the European Union, Australian Embassy in the Philippines, Japan, and The Asia Foundation.
The same story appeared in the news website of ABS-CBN.
The decommissioning process is among the key provisions of the Annex on Normalization of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) to help former MILF combatants transition to civilian life.
“As of August 10, 2023, a total of 26,132 MILF combatants and 4,625 of their firearms have been successfully decommissioned since 2015 by the IDB (Independent Decommissioning Body), which is tasked to implement the decommissioning process,” Presidential Peace Adviser Sec. Carlito G. Galvez Jr. said, according to a press release from OPAPRU on Thursday October 12.
As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories.
MindaNews is a verified signatory to the Code of Principles of the International Fact-Checking Network. (H. Marcos C. Mordeno / MindaNews)
