By Nash B. Maulana

MIDSAYAP, Cotabato—A Catholic chapel in Barangay Tumbras has been walled like a parish church ever since a standoff there occurred between Christian militias and local Moro guerrillas in 1971.

A group of young Moros were oriented at random clandestine recruitment to rescue Moro residents of Tumbras. They were reportedly restrained by armed militias from the Western Visayas, popularly known by their band tag as “Ilaga” (Visayan for “rat”).

The militias secured the Sr. San Isidro Labrador Chapel, ostensibly a refuge for Christian residents that they thought were the targets of the Moro guerrillas. Government in-charge opened the irrigation dam to deliberately flood an open field to thwart the attackers. Many were unable to wade through sticky ground against fast-rising water current. Indeed, some from both camps were not lucky enough to return home alive.

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Now the past has long been buried.

Today, in the words of Bangsamoro Transitional Parliament Member Mohammad Kelly Antao, Barangay Tumbras and six other villages comprising Midsayap Cluster I of the 63-barangay Special Geographic Area (SGA), are not only a “community of peaceful coexistence between Muslim and Christian residents.” These communities would also be setting the goals through the future of governance, says Interior and Local Governments Minister Naguib Sinarimbo of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Sinarimbo said the BARMM barangay clusters in majority Christian settlements in Cotabato Province will set the “future of governance” with innovative setups that would enhance local communities with “enterprising governance/” given their inherent “corporate powers.”
He said this will bring about changes and results in the affairs of LGUs “different from the usual governance.”

“As we operationalize the SGADA (Special Geographic Area Development Authority) you will receive more” (assistance package), Sinarimbo assured recipient-residents of farm and fishery equipment machineries gathered Thursday in Barangay Tumbras.

Just across the chapel, the Bangsamoro autonomous government is constructing a two-layer barangay hall building to be equipped with modern facilities much unlike the smaller, already congested old government hall in Tumbras.

One or both parties of the armed conflict in the 1970’s probably did not know then that in armed conflict, the Muslim army is taught by Islam to spare the places of worship of other religions just as the elders, the religious leaders, the children, women and the non-combatants.

These are new occurrences acknowledged even by senor police officers and military commanders in the area. There’s now largely a unity in a community of diversity, said Army Lt Col Rowel Gavilances, commanding officer of the 90th Infantry Battalion (90 IB) based in Pikit.

P/Lt Col Argel Ancheta Police Force Commander of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion (RMBF) remarked: “It’s now SGA as in Sige’g Asenso; dili parehas kaniadto sa Pikit nga SGA, Sige’g Away.” A colloquial mix of Tagalog ang Visayan which roughly means, “it’s development all the way; not anymore the ususal incidents in Pikit when they’re more frequently at odds.”

Barangay Chair Fatima Mokamad, Cluster President, and her council members in Tumbras were delighted to receive Thursday 33 post-harvest and pre-planting farm machineries and 300 motorized inland fishing bancas for farmers and fishers in Cluster I Midsayap Barangays of the SGA from the MILG BARMM.

In every conflict, a worthy dialogue should stand in between parties involved, says Butch Malang, administrator of SGADA of the BARMM.

For as long as parties in conflict sit to engage in a continuing dialogue, the state of peace will be attained to pave the way for sustainable development in the community, Malang adds.

Midsayap Cluster I SGA is composed of Barangays Tumbras, Central Labas, Kapimpilan, Malingao, Mudseng, Sambulawan and Tugal.

Sinarimbo said more development programs and projects will pour in, albeit one after the other to better determine the direct effect of the BARMM government’ efforts at community level.

He said development efforts were driven in through three streams: 1) the municipal local governance operations office of the Ministry of the BARMM Interior and Local Governments; 2) the SGADA which engages the locals on BARMM community initiatives and to fill in for services gap that the. SGDA provides support to barangay governance, community infrastructure facilities and province and municipalities could no longer give them after voting to join the BARMM in 2019; and the Bangsamoro Integrated Reconstruction and Development (BIRD) Program which is partly funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); and livelihood support.