Gov't cuts shorter route to peace with free circumcision, medical outreach

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Soldiers and members of a medical outreach team from the provincial capitol have just cut a shorter route to peace that is far from being bloody and destructive.

Medical teams from the Army’s 68th Infantry Battalion, the 5th Special Forces Battalion, and health workers from the office of Maguindanao’s provincial governor circumcised on Wednesday 83 Moro boys, more than 20 of them already adolescents, as part of an outreach mission in flood-stricken communities in Kabuntalan town.

The outreach mission was initiated for a humanitarian purpose, as its main objective, and to show to local folks the government’s sincerity in its peace overtures with Mindanao’s Moro sectors.

“It’s a two-pronged outreach mission, aimed at serving Kabuntalan residents as a regular program of the provincial government and, second, to complement President Aquino’s peace initiatives for underdeveloped Moro communities,” explained Lynette Estandarte, chief budget officer of the provincial government.

A total of 2,412 villagers, who have just returned to their homes from evacuation centers after having been displaced by last month’s flashfloods that hit Kabuntalan, also availed of free medical and dental services provided by teams that helped facilitate the outreach mission.

The patients went home bringing with them medicines for various ailments, such as hypertension, diabetes, skin diseases, and respiratory infections, supplied by the office of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

“I am thankful to the provincial government for the free circumcision of children here in Kabuntalan. Five of my grandchildren availed of it. They were also supplied with free antibiotics to prevent their cuts from getting infected,” 65-year-old Mokamad, a farmer, said in Maguindanaon vernacular.

Soldiers also gave 59 villagers free haircuts during the day-long outreach mission in a makeshift barber shop, while a military band played Filipino folk music on a deck of a 6x6 truck parked nearby.

Wednesday’s humanitarian mission of Mangudadatu’s office in Kabuntalan, located in the first district of Maguindanao, was a regular monthly activity of the governor since he was elected to office in 2010.

Estandarte said the governor’s multi-faceted health, education, and social welfare projects are also aimed at helping promote the cordiality among Maguindanao’s local communities and the provincial government.

The provincial government has provided free medical and dental services to a total of 67,349 people in far-flung villages in continuing outreach missions in Maguindanao since July 2010.

A grade six pupil, Salik, 12, said he is grateful to the organizers of the humanitarian project.

“My brother and I were circumcised for free. Our parents cannot afford the cost of circumcision in a private medical clinic or hospital because my father is only a fisherman and we have not even recovered yet from the sufferings caused by the recent floods that hit our village,” he said in Filipino.