Mangudadatu, Maguindanao vice guv to continue support for peace process

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and Vice Gov. Lester Sinsuat on Friday pledged to continue supporting the Mindanao peace process after having been sworn to office by Judge Alandrex Betoya.

The two reelected officials took their oaths of office at a legislative hall adjacent to the Maguindanao provincial government’s liaison office in Buluan town.

Elected members of the provincial board, among them the veteran legislator Bimbo Quesada Sinsuat, of Datu Odin Sinsuat town, were also sworn to office by Betoya.

Sinsuat had served as lawmaker in the now defunct Lupong Tagapagpaganap ng Pook in Region 12 in the 1970s and, subsequently, in the 24-seat Regional Assembly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Mangudadatu urged his constituent-leaders to continue supporting the efforts of the government to peacefully resolve the decades-old Moro issue.

The incoming President Rodrigo Duterte promised to pursue the peace process during the campaign period.

Mangudadatu said he is convinced of Duterte’s sincerity in his dealings with Moro people, having exemplified fair treatment, in a “patriarchal manner,” of Muslims in Davao City where he was mayor for a long time.

He said Moro people ought to help the new president address the peace and security issues besetting the country’s far south and not just leave everything to Malacañang.

Mangudadatu and Sinsuat also both assured to sustain the provincial government’s eight-point peace and development agenda, focused on education, agriculture and socio-economic interventions meant to hasten the restoration of normalcy in all of Maguindanao’s 36 towns. 

Mangudadatu said foremost of these initiatives is his college scholarship thrust, the Maguindanao Program for Education and Community Empowerment, which he pioneered five years ago, which now has more than 5,000 beneficiaries.

Betoya, in the same event, also administered the oath of office of Mangudadatu’s younger sibling, Khadafeh, a reelected member of the ARMM’s 24-member law-making body.

Elected local officials in the adjoining Pandag, Mangudadatu, Buluan, Datu Paglas, Paglat and S.K. Pendatun towns were also installed to office by Betoya, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 15 in Central Mindanao.

The mass oath-taking rite was witnessed by ARMM’s local government secretary, Anwar Malang, who also hails from Maguindanao province.