Police, military, Maguindanao locals plant 3K 'trees of peace'

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - The police, military, and the local communities on Saturday renewed their commitment to the Mindanao peace process by planting 3,000 narra and mahogany seedlings on a protected watershed in Datu Odin Sinsuat town.

The activity, organized by Brig. Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID), was participated by representatives of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), led by former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema.

Sema is chair of the largest and most politically active faction in the MNLF, which signed a final peace deal with government on Sept. 2, 1996.

Sema and Pangilinan jointly led the symbolic planting of the “trees of peace” in the surroundings of the Dimapatoy protected watershed in the west of Datu Odin Sinsuat, about 3 kilometers away from Camp Gonzalo Siongco, the command center of 6th ID.

The Cotabato City Water District operates a pumping facility near the Dimapatoy watershed, which supplies water to all of the 37 barangays in nearby Cotabato City.

Pangilinan told reporters the tree planting event was part of the 6th ID’s environmental protection efforts.

He said the activity was also meant to strengthen the camaraderie among sectors helping push the Mindanao peace process forward.

Representatives from Central Mindanao’s top producer of Antipolo tree seedlings, the Minrico, Inc., a wood processing firm in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao, also planted mahogany seedlings, alongside Pangilinan and Sema.

The Minrico, Inc. is a major benefactor of the “re-greening program” in Maguindanao of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DENR-ARMM).

The DENR-ARMM had earlier embarked on more than a dozen tree planting activities in Camp Abubakar, the former bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the province, utilizing seedlings supplied by the Minrico, Inc.

ARMM employees, led by an emergency rescue group from the region’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team, planted some 300 tree seedlings at one side of the Dimapatoy watershed during the three-hour activity

Sema and Pangilinan had agreed to cooperate in protecting watershed areas in Maguindanao where there are MNLF communities.

Pangilinan said he also plans to embark on another tree planting activity involving representatives of the MILF.

Pangilinan was the deputy commander for the peace process of the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City prior to his assumption as 6th ID’s commander last May 2014.