Maguindanao investors wary over BBL passage
BULUAN, Maguindanao – Investors in Maguindanao are keenly watching the deliberations on the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in Congress, seriously concerned over the fate of the millions of pesos they have already invested in the province, according to Governor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu.
At a recent press conference here, Mangudadatu admitted that the controversy caused by the Mamasapano deadly clash last January 25 has caused a major snag on the BBL deliberation in Congress and has also affected the enthusiasm of investors in bringing more capital into the province’s agro-industrial sector.
“Parang medyo natakot sila, pero hindi sila umatras. Ayaw nilang umatras kasi nandito daw sa lalawigan natin yong napakalawak na lupa na angkop sa negosyong isinusulong nila,” the governor said, referring to a number of big companies that have already invested several millions of pesos in the province.
In its summary of 2013 and 2014 reports, the Regional Board of Investments of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (RBOI-ARMM) said it had recorded more than P7-billion investments in the region and that Maguindanao shared the “biggest chunk” of it.
The RBOI-ARMM reports pointed to agro-industrial, particularly cultivation and production of banana, palm oil and other high-value crops as absorbed the largest of the investments in Maguindanao.
Mangudadatu cited local agriculture experts’ affirmation that most lands in Maguindanao are fit for banana farming, and that banana species from the province proved to the “sweetest” in the world.
Thousands of hectares here and nearby Datu Paglas town have been developed into banana plantations for two decades now, providing employment to hundreds of residents and transforming locals from “gun-wielding to peaceful and productive workers,” authorities said.
Since 2013, local cooperatives had linked up with some multi-national firms in opening more lands in towns of Maguindanao like Guindulungan and Ampatuan, the site of the infamous massacre of 58 people including media workers in 2009.
The Maguindanao-based Al-Mujahidun Agro-Resources and Development, Inc. (AMARDI), a new group of mostly Muslim converts, opened the first phase of its business tie-up with a Malaysianbased firm on 1,500 hectares in Ampatuan town last year.
Under the next phase, the plantation would be expanded to thousands more of lands for banana and other value crops, but the inflow of more capitals have been held in abeyance as a result of the Mamasapano clash that left more 60 people killed including 44 elite police commandos and caused a snag in the congressional deliberation of the BBL, according to Mangudadatu.
He said Del Monte, a known bananapropagating firm, had obtained the approval of its $1.5-billion loan for expansion in Guindulungan and other towns in Maguindanao but the ground-breaking works were being held in abeyance pending the BBL’s rough sailing in Congress.
The BBL, which translates legally the government’s peace deals with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for the creating of a Bangsamoro autonomous region in replacement of ARMM, has been passed by the Ad Hoc Committee of the House of Representatives and expected for plenary approval before June 11.