The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity said the government is seeking to decommission around 5,500 Moro Islamic Liberation Fronts combatants this year as part of the Bangsamoro peace process initiatives under the Marcos administration.
OPAPRU's Communications and Public Affairs Services director Darwin Wally Wee said a total of 19,345 MILF combatants have been decommissioned since the implementation of the first phase decommissioning in 2015 and the second phase in 2019-2020.
Wee said the Phase 3 decommissioning process has already begun last year as part of the government's goal to reform armed revolutionaries into "peaceful and productive citizens."
The decommissioning, which is now at its third phase, also comes with the provision of financial assistance, social entrepreneurship projects, and skills development training.
"Under the context of the comprehensive Bangsamoro peace process, you have there two tracks, one is political track and normalization," Wee said in an exclusive interview over the Daily Tribune's Straight Talk show on Tuesday.
The political track includes the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic law and the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The government's Inter-Cabinet Cluster Mechanism on Normalization has effectively pushed the implementation of normalization track components of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro which includes security aspects, socio-economic development program, confidence-building measures, and transitional justice and reconciliation.
The OPAPRU has earlier reported that through the ICCMM, the government was able to implement at least 41 social entrepreneurship projects for decommissioned MILF members, their families, and communities.
