14 firms get contracts to mark borders in Basilan, Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  --  Fourteen private surveying outfits will start setting this week the demarcations separating several towns in Basilan and Maguindanao whose local government units are locked in long-time border disputes.

The contracts for the projects were awarded to the 14 surveying companies during a simple rite on Saturday at the office here of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Mujiv Hataman, in the presence of local officials and representatives of different media entities.

Kahal Kedtag, ARMM’s regional natural resources secretary, said the surveying firms that won the bids will commence this week with the work plans they are to comply with.

Five of the 36 towns in Maguindanao, Mangudadatu, Pandag, Datu Piang, Datu Salibo, Datu Abdullah Sangki, and Upi, will be subjected to the initial cadastral surveys in the province to determine their boundaries with municipalities around them.

Kedtag said the survey of the territories covered by the five Maguindanao towns costs P32.9 million.

The lowest bid for the survey of the territorial coverage of Upi, a hinterland town in the first district of Maguindanao, was pegged at P17.3 million by winning bidder Geolane Land Consultants, owing to the town’s extremely rugged terrains, thick forests and mountain ranges reachable only by foot.

“The bidding process for the cadastral surveys in each of these five towns in Maguindanao, as well as the eight towns in Basilan were done in the most religious manner, according to government auditing regulations, and observed by members of the media,” Kedtag said.

The survey of the boundaries of Basilan’s  adjoining Tipo-Tipo, Albarka, Ungkaya Pukan, Sumisip, Tabuan Lasa, Lantawan, and Hadji Muhtamad towns, and Lamitan City, the capital of the island province, costs P23.8 million.

Kedtag said the survey projects, although an independent, joint initiative of the executive department of ARMM, the office of Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje, and Malacañang, will complement the on-going peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

“This project will help determine to which LGUs the areas in the ARMM that are known to have deposits of minerals, natural gas and fossil fuels belong,” Kedtag said.

The GPH and MILF panels have agreed on a wealth-sharing scheme for natural resources that can be found in the proposed Bangsamoro territory, which is to be established based on a final peace deal both sides intend to have before 2016.

Kedtag said the cadastral survey projects, which will also cover other towns in the ARMM provinces of Lanao del Sur, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, is bankrolled by the national government, based on a memorandum of agreement signed by Hataman and Paje on June 12, 2012.

Kedtag said Hataman has issued a directive for the ARMM’s natural resources department to make open to scrutiny by journalists all financial documents that pertain to the survey projects.

“These will mean actual field surveys involving barangay officials and LGUs, to be monitored by media outfits operating in the autonomous region,” Kedtag said.