Maguindanao students might hold graduation rites in evacuation centers

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines  – Some 5,000 graduating elementary and high school students are likely to hold graduation rites in different evacuation centers in Maguindanao starting next week, a regional education official said yesterday.

John Magno, assistant secretary for operations of the Department of Education in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said school heads in Maguindanao’s conflict-stricken Mamasapano, Sharif Saidona, Sharif Aguak, Salibo, Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay towns have been instructed to hold their graduation ceremonies in evacuation centers to keep the zeal and enthusiasm of the graduating students.

“The ARMM leadership wants these graduating elementary pupils and high school students to feel that everything is being done for their good and that their dream of furthering their studies must not be weakened by the security problems now besetting their villages,” Magno said.

Magno said there are tacit indications the hostile situation in the affected towns will continue until the summer.

More than 30 schools in the affected towns were closed last March 2 following the military offensive against Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

The military operation against the BIFF was launched after the rebels blocked the Cotabato-Gen. Santos City Highway in Datu Unsay and Datu Saudi last Feb. 28, provoking a series of encounters that lasted until the next day.

Guns have been silent since Friday, but evacuees in many relief sites, now more than 90,000, are reluctant to return home for fear of resumption of the firefights.

Six soldiers and more than 30 rebels were killed in the gunfights in the past 15 days.

A spate of gunfights from Wednesday until Thursday afternoon in Shariff Saidona and Salibo forced more than 10,000 villagers to abandon their homes.

Laisa Alamia, executive secretary of ARMM, said there are already 93,402 evacuees in different relief sites in Maguindanao as of Friday.

There were only more than 70,000 evacuees from March 1 until last Tuesday in different evacuation centers in the province.

Alamia said ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman directed the regional government’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team (HEART) to immediately dispatch three truckloads of relief supplies for the new evacuees.

The HEART and the Anak Mindanao party-list, led by Rep. Sitti Djalia Turabin-Hataman, distributed Wednesday more than 30 tons of food supplies to thousands of evacuees in a joint relief mission supported by the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, the provincial government of Maguindanao and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Kadil Sinolinding, ARMM’s regional health secretary, said there are more than 2,000 pregnant women in evacuation centers that need utmost medical attention.

“These women are at great risk. We have to focus extensive attention on them,” Sinolinding said. – With Ben Serrano, Lino de la Cruz