Troops begin 'development offensive' in Basilan

Top photo shows Secretary Jesus Dureza, peace process presidential adviser and Brig. Gen. Juancho Sabban, deputy chief of the Western Mindanao Command and commander of the Task Force Thunder, at the marine brigade headquarters in Tabiawan, Isabela City. Below photos show Dureza is being led by Governor Jum Akbar to a conference hall and flanked by the Basilan lady governor and Vice Gov. Al Rashed Sakalahul during a meeting at the capitol on the current situation in the island province.

Government forces have began an intensive "developmental offensive" against the extremist Abu Sayyaf group and its insurgent cohorts in the strife torn Muslim-dominated island province of Basilan.

Peace process presidential adviser Jesus Dureza disclosed this during his visit Thursday in Basilan, where he presided over a meeting at the capitol, attended by officials of the provincial government, the military and heads of the different concerned agencies.

"We have started the development offensive. In fact, that's the reason why we are here," said Dureza. "We are on development phase now, although without letting our guards down on the security aspect."

According to Dureza, "There are still targets to be achieved in the military side, but we can do the development side by side with security operations."

He announced that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo initially released P50 million for the circumferential road of Basilan and humanitarian missions in the conflict-affected communities in the province.

At the meeting, Brig. Gen. Juancho Sabban, head of the Task Force Thunder and Western Mindanao Command deputy chief, bared there are three engineering battalions involved in the developmental offensives.

He said the engineering battalions from the Navy, Air Force and the Army will undertake road constructions and other projects such as water distribution system, school building repairs and construction of health centers in Tipo-Tipo, Maluso and Sumisip areas.

It was learned the three military engineering battalions will tie up with the projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to provide labor and equipment for infrastructure projects in the conflict-affected areas.

DPWH is implementing the 135 kilometers circumferential road in Basilan funded by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has initially released $20 million through the Saudi Fund.

"In a nutshell, we'll be deploying three engineering battalions to catalyze our second phase of operation, which is the 'developmental offensive' that the president has been saying," Sabban said.

He furthered the new offensive will be in tandem with the on going operations against specific targets in the hinterlands of Basilan, but will be more of the humanitarian and developmental aspects rather than all out war.

"In the course of going to phase 2 of our operations, we will be pulling out one battalion of marines instead and we'll be injecting three engineering battalions," he said. "But we are not slowing down our offensive just because we are pulling out one battalion."

Meanwhile, Basilan Vice Governor Al Rasheed Sakalahul called on the military to pull out troops from villages in Al barka town to give way for the evacuees to return to their places and observe the month of Ramadan.

The call came after representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) adopted a resolution, calling the military to temporarily pull out its forces from the areas considering fasting of Muslims is fast approaching.

In response, Secretary Dureza assured that the military forces are doing their work within the parameters of the civilian requirements, although there will be some adjustments in the military operations.

"But let not the Ramadan be an opportunity for the bad guys to take advantage," he said. "We leave that to the military officials. I'm sure they will be able to exercise religious sensitivity."

For Sabban, "It is up to higher authorities to decide on that. If they will make a resolution and our GRP panel will approve that, then we have to abide by it. So it depends now on the GRP panel whether to deliberate the approval of that or not."

In the ongoing military operations in Basilan, about of 2,256, mostly Muslim families or 12,463 individuals have fled their homes from the towns of Al Barka, Ungkaya Pukan, Tipo-Tipo and Sumisip.

Classes in at least 13 schools in the three affected towns with an estimated 1,800 pupils were temporarily suspended for almost a month now.

Based on reports from the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), some 36 buildings that were damaged by the operations need major repair.

"These are the schools, where we would need the assistance of the military engineering battalion," DepEd Assistant Secretary Ramon Bacani said.

Basilan has become the model following the the first US-RP Balikatan Exercises where the international communities have already looked at the province as an example of how a community that had been pestered before by the incidents become a development area, but because of the July 10 incident the province is going to backslide.