COTABATO CITY — The military, police, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Basilan have strengthened ties to sustain peace in the province.

All 11 towns and the Lamitan City in Basilan, scenes of bloody clashes between Moro secessionist groups and government forces in decades past, had all been cleared from presence of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group via joint peacebuilding programs of local government units, the police and the military’s Western Mindanao Command.

Radio reports in Cotabato City on Sunday stated that officials of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade, the Basilan Provincial Police Office and representatives of the joint Government-MILF Coordinating Committee agreed to continue cooperating on programs complementing the Mindanao peace process during a dialogue in Barangay Matatag in Lamitan City on Friday, Sept. 20.

Haroro J. Ingram, the Philippine country director of the United States Institute of Peace was present in the peace and security conference, where cooperation among key players in keeping the peace now in Basilan was discussed by participants.

Among the attendees were the commander of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade, Brig. Gen. Alvin V. Luzon, and Basilan provincial police director, Police Colonel Cerrazid A. Umabong.

Friday’s peace and security conference in Lamitan City reportedly delved partly on the need to maintain cohesion in peacebuilding activities of all sectors in Basilan, including the Government-MILF Coordinating Committee, the 101st Infantry Brigade, the provincial police and its component municipal police stations. — John Felix M. Unson