HOUSING PROJECT. The aerial view of a housing project in Basilan province, which the BARMM government has been pushing in various areas across the region for the benefit of indigents and former Moro combatants. More than 1,000 units of concrete houses have been completed and turned over to beneficiaries since 2019, with the latest turnover happening in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte on Wednesday (May 15, 2024). (Photo from Ministry of Human Settlement and Development - BARMM)
COTABATO CITY – Kagi Ali, a former Moro rebel, cannot contain his excitement after he became a homeowner for the first time, as part of a government initiative under the government-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace agreement.
"If not for the peace agreement, we would have remained as squatters. We are dignified with this housing project," Ali said in the vernacular during a phone interview Thursday.
Ali belongs to a group of 50 former MILF and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) combatants who received housing units from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte on Wednesday.
"Many beneficiaries are teary-eyed accepting documents of the house they now, legally and legitimately, own," Ustadz Esmael W. Ebrahim, director general of the Ministry of Human Settlement and Development (MHSD) - BARMM), said in a separate interview.
Esmael led the turnover of the PHP40-million housing project, which includes the house, land, and title for each property, in Barangay Banubo, Sultan Kudarat town.
Since 2019, BARMM has provided 1,000 housing units to indigent beneficiaries in Marawi City, the provinces of Tawi-Tawi and Maguindanao del Norte, and the BARMM's Special Geographic Area in North Cotabato province.
Ebrahim said the housing project is sourced from the General Appropriations Act of BARMM 2022. (PNA)
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