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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
SULU: From rustic M16 automatic
rifles and smoke grenades, now Filipino Marines are arming
themselves for a new kind of war—a battle of wits and
patience—to win over the minds and hearts of Muslims on the
southern island of Sulu, where poverty breeds terrorism.
Today, Marines on this island of
more than half a million Muslims are armed not with weapons, but
with chalks and pencils, battling to save poor children and
educating them in a campaign to win the war against illiteracy.
Soldiers have not only built
schools for the poor in Sulu Province, but teach the children basic
elementary education. Called the “School for Badjao Adults and
Out-of-School Youth,” dozens of mostly poor children who have not
held a single book in their life, now are reciting the alphabets and
slowly learning how to read.
“Our mission is to help the
children in Sulu, our children,” one soldier said and pointed on a
signboard outside the school that reads: “Mission … To provide
literacy program for the Badjao out-of-school youth that will
qualify them for the formal elementary education of the Department
of Education as well as basic education for the Badjao adults to
enable them to communicate and exercise their rights, conduct
themselves with dignity and courage, and enable them to perform
their civic duties as Filipino citizens.”
Brig. Gen. Cesario Atienza,
commander of the Second Marine Brigade in Sulu, said they are also
collecting used books for the children.
“The children now go to school
clean everyday and eager to learn more, and this is basic education;
and their teachers are the soldiers who patiently held them achieve
their dreams; and that is to learn how to read and write,” Atienza
said.
The soldiers not only teach the
children, they have also embarked on various skills-training
programs to help poor families start their own small business—from
mat weaving to rice cake baking and other sustainable livelihood
projects, he said.
Soldiers also finished at least
50 bamboo houses, worth more than P26,500 each, for poor Badjao
families in Tandu Bato in Luuk town, Atienza said, adding that Gov.
Sakur Tan of Sulu funded the project called “Operation Kandili—Preserving
a unique culture through providing homes for the Badjao.”
The general said they will
construct at least 50 more houses in Luuk. They have also finished a
basketball court.
Tan inspected the projects on
Monday and promised to release more funding for education and
poverty alleviation programs drawing wild cheers and applause from
more than 100 Badjao natives chanting his name.
“He is a good man, a good
leader and without him,” said Kasim, a 29-year-old Badjao
fisherman, pointing to a row of old bamboo houses on stilts.
“There will be no beautiful bamboo houses like those.” Now, many
Badjao families will no longer live by the sea or on those
dilapidated thatched houses, he added.
Tan said more development
projects are underway in Sulu. “We have been funding and
implementing a lot of projects in Sulu, and all these are part of
our peace and development programs. We want a culture of peace, and
this can be achieved through education and basic infrastructure
projects and with the participation of course, of the people
themselves.”
Marine Brig. Gen. Juancho Sabban,
commander of military forces in Sulu, told soldiers during an
inspection Monday to work hard to achieve peace in the province by
engaging in humanitarian missions to win hearts and minds of the
locals.
“We must put an end to the
cycle of violence in Sulu, to the threats of the Abu Sayyaf and
other terror groups and we can achieve this not by the barrel of the
gun, but by winning hearts and minds of the people,” Sabban said.
“With the people on our side, we will surely win the war on
terror.”
The number of Abu Sayyaf
militants in Sulu has drastically dwindled over the years. Many of
its leaders were either killed or captured. From more than 1,000 a
decade ago, authorities estimate the number of Abu Sayyaf gunmen in
the province to be around 200 or fewer.
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