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Philippines Government To Tackle Mindanao Poverty
by Kazi Mahmood for IslamOnline
JAKARTA, May 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Philippines has started fresh moves in a bid to eliminate poverty in Mindanao, the vastly Muslim populated provinces in the southern part of the country.
On Monday, the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo outlined five core strategies that will serve as the framework for its fight against poverty in the next 200 days.
Observers believe the initiative is a challenge for the administration and predict that it may fail in achieving 100% success. Destruction in Mindanao, following one year of extensive devastation due to an "all-out war" against the Bangsamoro people, has been near total.
The government has started to reconstruct houses in Camp Abubakar but does translate into a capacity to fully implement the plan in question.
The anti-poverty action plan, to be implemented with the help of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) and civil society groups, was crafted during workshops and consultations among the basic economic sectors in the country and culminated with leaders' meeting with Arroyo May 4th.
The five core strategies are asset reform; full provision of human development services; participation of the poor in governance and institution building; security and protection from violence in order to fully exercise political, social and economic rights; and increasing socio-economic opportunities for the poor and strengthening capabilities of marginalized sectors.
Among the measures the government will take under asset reform are the issuance of Certificates of Ancestral Domain, or Ancestral Land Titles for the benefit of the indigenous peoples (IP); the fast-tracking of the implementation of the agrarian reform program in prime agricultural and coconut lands for the farmers; the full implementation of the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act, to put the 15-kilometer from shoreline for priority use by local fisher folk families; and the proclamation of portions of public lands for use as socialized housing and provision of funding to local government units for land banking as a strategy to stabilize land pricing.
The government has not revealed how much money will be involved in the projects, or how it will raise the required funding. It has said, however, that it will furnish more details in the coming days.
Other sources said the development and reconstruction projects linked to the Moro people would largely depend on the result of the peace accord underway between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The plan also makes provision for the government to improve the quality of children's education, especially in the training of child-friendly teachers; the passage of the Magna Carta for Students' Rights and the representation of the student sector in the NAPC. These are the main guidelines.
The plan also calls for the participation of the poor in governance and institution building. It was recommended that a new set of members of the National Commission on Indigenous People be selected - a National labor Relations Commission (NLRC) will be abolished.
The effective participation of Muslims will be encouraged in all critical agencies managing the peace process, relief and rehabilitation of Muslim communities effected by war and conflict; and the NAPC be reconstituted within the next 200 days.
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