WELCOMING EX-REBELS. President Rodrigo Duterte greets former rebels before distributing their benefits during a ceremony at the San Isidro Civic Center in San Isidro, Leyte on Thursday (Jan. 23, 2020). The government will build a resettlement site with more than 400 houses and a considerable area for livelihood activities in San Isidro town for former rebels. (Presidential photo by Karl Norman Alonzo)
TACLOBAN CITY -- A resettlement site in San Isidro, Leyte will serve as a new home to rebels in the province who surrender, live a normal life, and embrace peace and development.
The Peace and Prosperity Village is designed to be a sustainable community that will rise in more than 100 hectares of land owned by the provincial government with areas intended for housing and livelihood.
Leyte Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla said on Tuesday this is part of the government’s Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) jointly funded by the national government and local government.
“This is to ensure that surrendering communist rebels will have a holistic package of benefits such as livelihood, medical, education, and housing assistance. The government’s goal for rebel returnees is for them to help build a better nation, unite, and be one with the government,” Petilla told reporters.
Future development works in the site in Daja Daku village in San Isidro town include the construction of a health center, community center, multipurpose building, evacuation center, manpower development center, daycare center, and children’s playground.
The main component is the construction of over 400 single-detached housing units and education facility with two units of three-classroom buildings.
The livelihood area comprises almost half of the total resettlement area that will house farm breeders, layers, flattening, staff house, warehouse, and slaughterhouse.
Officials have yet to come up with the estimated cost of the project.
“We are investing in this to make sure that they will not be influenced by insurgents again. The people are the greatest resource so we must build nation-loving people,” Petilla added.
The first beneficiaries of this project are some of the 262 former rebels and Militia ng Bayan (MB) members in Leyte who received on January 24 the E-CLIP benefits and the certificate of eligibility for lot award in the resettlement site.
President Rodrigo Duterte who led the turnover of financial aid to former rebels renewed his call to rebels to lay down their arms and avail of land distribution and other government assistance.
He told the former rebels that the country could have prospered a long time ago had it not been for the armed struggle of the New People’s Army (NPA).
“We can’t solve the problem in the Philippines by revolution, it has to be evolution,” he said.
He asked them to stop fighting and pity their children who will grow up knowing only the anger they have for the government.
The NPA, which has been waging a five-decade armed struggle against the government, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines. (PNA)
