MANILA: More than 5,000 former fighters who fought for Filipino Muslim autonomy in the southern Philippines will join the country’s police force as part of government efforts to sustain peace in one of Southeast Asia’s most conflict-torn regions.
The peace process in Bangsamoro, a region covering predominantly Muslim areas of Mindanao, has been underway for nearly a decade since the government struck a permanent ceasefire deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front after almost 40 years of conflict.
An armed breakaway group of the Moro National Liberation Front — the oldest Muslim separatist movement in Mindanao — MILF continued to fight when its parent organization reached a peace agreement with the Philippine government in the 1990s. Only in 2014 did MILF fighters agree to turn over their firearms in exchange for the establishment of a self-administered Bangsamoro.
As part of the peace process, the region’s inhabitants voted for its greater autonomy in a referendum held in 2019. The transition period will culminate in 2025, when Bangsamoro will elect its legislature and executive.
Mainstreaming former fighters into the national security forces is part of the autonomy project. The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process announced last week that 11,000 former combatants from MILF and MNLF will sit for exams in late May to join the Philippine police force.
About 5,060 of the best candidates are expected to be admitted, initially as patrolmen and patrolwomen.
“The entry of MILF and MNLF members into the PNP (Philippine National Police) is a crucial step in sustaining and building on the gains of the Bangsamoro peace process,” Wilben Mayor, assistant secretary at the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, told Arab News on Tuesday.
“Once they are integrated into the PNP, the MILF and MNLF members will be part of the police force that will ensure peace and security not only in the Bangsamoro, but throughout the country,” he added. “They are now considered peacekeepers and peacebuilders.”
The induction of former fighter into the police follows an agreement signed earlier this month by the National Police Commission and Ahod Balawag Ebrahim, the MILF chairman who serves as the interim chief minister Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
“We are happy that we are finally taking the first step into making this provision a reality,” Ebrahim said at the time.
The integration process is also expected to help uplift the local community.
“The lives of the 5,060 individuals and their families can change for the better as they benefit from a stable career in the police service,” National Police Commission Vice Chairperson Alberto Bernardo told the media after signing the agreement with Ebrahim.
Decades of conflict have hampered development and kept these parts of Mindanao among the poorest regions not only in the Philippines, but also in Asia.