COTABATO CITY (October 13, 2025) —- The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity and the provincial government of Basilan forged on Thursday, October 9, an agreement to jointly embark on two peacebuilding programs in the island province.
The now apparently peaceful Basilan is one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, touted as one of BARMM’s new investment hubs.
Basilan Gov. Mujiv Hataman and Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. of OPAPRU signed the separate agreements for the two peace and socio-economic programs during Thursday’s multi-sector and inter-agency peace and security forum at the provincial capitol in Barangay Santa Clara in Lamitan City.
Radio reports on Saturday, October 11, in BARMM’s capital, Cotabato City, stated that the first of the two agreement binds OPAPRU and Hataman’s office to cooperate in implementing the Localizing Normalization Implementation (LNI) Program, aiming to sustain the peace now spreading around Basilan.
The second agreement obliges the OPAPRU and the Hataman administration to implement together the Preventing and Transforming Violent Extremism, or PTVE Program, which shall complement the LNI Program.
The two programs are partly focused on improving the lives, via humanitarian interventions, of decommissioned combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and former violent religious extremists who have returned to the fold of law through the joint intercession of local executives in Basilan, the police and the military.
OPAPRU and provincial officials in Basilan separately told reporters on Saturday that the national government has earmarked P14 million for both programs that the military’s Western Mindanao Command and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region shall both support too.
Hataman said he is certain that the MILF, the Moro National Liberation Front and former members of the Abu Sayyaf terror group who have pledged allegiance to the government will help push the two peacebuilding programs forward.
“We must work hand-in-hand to ensure the efficient implementation of projects under the different aspects of the government’s normalization program, which include security, socio-economic development, confidence-building, and transitional justice and reconciliation thrusts,” Galvez said.
Galvez said the two new programs that the OPAPRU and Hataman’s office shall together implement are related to Malacañang’s Mindanao peace process, which are focused on addressing violent religious extremism and on boosting its diplomatic overtures with the MILF and the MNLF.
The MILF and the MNLF have separate peace agreements with the national government and have representatives in the now five-year 80-seat BARMM regional parliament.
Leaders of both fronts are also together managing several agencies under the Bangsamoro regional government.
Photo shows Hataman, Galvez, and a representative of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, Marine Major Gen. Romulo Quemado II, signing the separate agreements on their joint implementation of two new peacebuilding programs for Basilan’s 11 towns and two cities.