Fraternities team up to save Maguindanao watershed

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The police and military assured support for a project among two fraternities, the Alpha Sigma Phi (Alphans) and the Alpha Phi Omega (APO), and the natural resources department of the Autonomous Region meant to protect a critical watershed area southwest of  Maguindanao.

Col. Noli Orense, commander of the Army’s 603rd Brigade, said they are ready to cooperate with the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s (ARMM) Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the local chapters of the two fraternities to preserve and reforest the denuded areas at the mountain ranges located at the boundary of  Maguindanao’s adjoining Datu Odin Sinsuat and North Upi towns.

ARMM’s natural resources secretary, Kahal Kedtag, and representatives of the two fraternities signed early this week a memorandum of agreement detailing each other’s role on how to preserve the forests in the watershed area, from where springs a big river where the Cotabato City Water District gets water to supply to the 37 barangays here and adjoining villages in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

The agreement was signed by Kedtag, Aladdin Sumael, and a member of the Maguindanao provincial board,  Russman Sinsuat, Jr., representing the Alphans and the APO, respectively.

“These are the projects that we can conveniently support now because there is already peace and calmness in the province as a result of the peace efforts of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Kedtag said ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman had also promised to exhaust his authority and influence to support the watershed protection and “adopt a mountain” project of the region’s natural resources department and the two equally-influential fraternities.

Kedtag, the proponent of the project, said he is certain the MILF will also help push the initiative forward.

The ARMM’s police director, Chief Supt. Noel Delos Reyes, said they will support the project too by intensifying their surveillance of poachers cutting trees in the mountain ranges the DENR, the APO and the Alphans are to jointly protect from environmental degradation.