Cotabato, Philippines

TACURONG CITY — A sanitary landfill worth P4 million has started operations recently.

The landfill is the first category 2 waste disposal facility that has become functional in Mindanao.

Zoilo L. Andin Jr., executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Commission, lauded the local government for its pioneering venture.

The landfill was materialized with the help of the Philippine Environmental Governance Project 2, a program funded by the United State Agency for International Development.

“I hope your initiative will be replicated in other parts of the country. For me, this is a model project and I will bring to your place local government officials who wish to have study tour on proper waste disposal methods,” Andin said during the launching ceremony.

The 6,000 square meter waste facility sits on a four-hectare property located in Barangay Upper Katungal, about four kilometers from the national highway.BSS

Sun.Star General Santos

COTABATO CITY– Various factions within the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) have “agreed to bury their hatchets” through the egging of Libya.

Under the Tripoli Declaration on Unity and Reconciliation of the MNLF Leadership, the formation of a transition leadership and unification committee of the front will be created.

This will be composed of MNLF founder Nur Misuari; Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin G. Sema; former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) governor Parouk S. Hussin, former chairman of the Southern Philippines Development Authority Mujahab Hashim; Indanan, Sulu Mayor Alvarez S. Isnaji and Sulu Representative Yusop H. Jikiri.

Misuari, who is out on bail on charges of rebellion, failed to attend the unity meeting held last week.

He was ousted as chairman of the MNLF several years ago by the so-called “Council of 15.”

Present on the side of the government during the meeting, which was initiated by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation (GICDF), was Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus G. Dureza, who was recently appointed as Press Secretary.

The committee is the sole legitimate body of the MNLF and the only one authorized to enter into any negotiation and agreement, the declaration said.

It shall also be the one to agree on the appropriate way of resolving leadership crisis in the MNLF through democratic process before the end of June 2008, the document added.BSS

Sun.Star General Santos

TWO cargo trucks loaded with sacks of National Food Authority (NFA) rice were confiscated in Cotabato City.

Reports gathered from the Cotabato City Police Office showed that members of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Central Mindanao spotted the cargo trucks in front of the Roxas National High School in Cotabato City around 10 a.m. on Thursday.

The trucks were loaded with at least 1,000 sacks of NFA rice.

Upon inspection, the truck driver was unable to present pertinent documents, thus the confiscation of the cargo.

Cotabato City Police director Willie Dangane said the sacks of rice from the NFA office in General Santos City were set to be brought to the NFA warehouse in Polloc Port in Parang, Shariff Kabunsuan Province.

Authorities were puzzled why the cargo was set to be delivered to a businessman in Cotabato City.

Sun.Star Davao

Communist rebels on Thursday claimed responsibility for the separate killings of three village officials in Mindanao earlier this week.

Vilage chiefs Felimon Eyana, Deonito Carmona and Wilson Latimbang were punished for their “crimes” as military spies, said Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesman for the New People’s Army (NPA) Southern Mindanao regional command.

“(They) are not plain village officials. They were a part of the Barangay Intelligence Network (BIN) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Deonito Carmona and Wilson Latimbang were intelligence assets of the 39th Infantry Battalion-AFP while Felimon Eyana was BIN asset of the 28th IB-AFP and 60th- IB-AFP,” Sanchez said in a statement posted Thursday evening on the Communist Party of the Philippines website.

Eyana was captain of San Vicente village in Montevista, Compostela Valley and Carmona was a former village chief of Coronan in Sta. Cruz town, Davao del Sur.

Latimbang, on the other hand, was a village councilor of Noa in Magpet town in North Cotabato.

“As intelligence assets, they are armed; join combat patrol operations in their locality and other hostile anti-revolutionary actions.
Intelligence work being a vital and integral component of the AFP’s combat and other military operations, thus, BINs are part of the whole armed counter-revolutionary machinery of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) armed forces. As such they are legitimate military targets,” Sanchez said.

He added the three were punished not because of their anti-New People’s Army political views or because they are local government functionaries.

GMANews.TV