Peace in Muslim Mindanao

the region after decades of armed conflict.

the cascading effect on us who live in the benighted homeland is that our workers desert us because we cannot give them just desserts for their toil.

I also question the wisdom of appointing tourism attaches complete with offices in foreign lands. Some of them were appointed, as usual, because of “connect,” not marketing skills.

Think out-of-the-box.

Why not just hire Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, even Australian travel agencies, and compensate them through commissions for the tourists they bring here?

Support them with properly designed advertising and collaterals for their particular target markets. That would be more cost-effective.

One example is calculating the number of Catholics in these countries. They may be a minority in their countries, but they are more fervent in the practice of their faith than many of our ritual-focused Catolicos.

Give them a travel package that brings them, not necessarily to Intramuros, but to Ilocandia or Central and Western Visayas, bypassing chaotic NCR, where visiting churches as some sort of pilgrimage can be combined with the natural beauty of these destinations.

That is just one example.

There should be many more, if only the locally desk-bound, and foreign travel-hungry tourism bureaucrats can flex their creative energies properly, and stop buying at Selfridges or Fortnum and Mason for pasalubongs.

Then there is the woeful infrastructure, beginning with our NAIA complex of four decrepit terminals, and one main runway with a hardly useful extra runway perpendicular to the main.

Don’t even think of spending billions of pesos more trying to make the NAIA complex infrastructure better.

It will only be a matter of years before the SMC Bulacan airport with four parallel runways, two of which Ramon Ang promises to be usable within the term of the current administration.

Spend a billion or two and hire or appoint some traffic systems experts and efficient airport management personnel to focus on the problems that make arriving and departing through the air terminals a living hell.

Why can’t we give more space to immigration personnel, and sacrifice those of our useless Duty Free counters in Terminal 1 and 2 for instance?

Hire a space-management interior design expert, for chrissakes.

And similarly, if we can double the salaries of policemen, why are we niggardly when it comes to overtime pay for our immigration agents manning the air terminals? Or our traffic controllers?

How do we try our best to give seamless connectivity for passengers who have to interconnect using those four terminals?

The original NAIA 3 design called for an underground subway train in the bidding terms of reference but was corruption the cause of canceling that, leaving the passengers scrounging for their own modes of transfer transport?

Why must we continue to allow general aviation hangars in the complex, when these are patronized by the uber-wealthy and the politicians who use private planes? Transfer these to Sangley, or wherever else, and use the added space for transfer transport and additional terminal space.

DoTr Sec. Bautista hired Glenn Chiong to run the NAIA complex and he was doing well, starting with common sense doables like abolishing the pre-check-in X-ray “security” contraptions, and other small but sensible steps.

What happened next? The Ombudsman suspended him without hearing because of management-crimping practices of hiring, firing and re-assignment protected by our antediluvian civil service rules.

Meanwhile, coordinated scheduling of airlines can optimize the use of our brand-new Clark International Airport just as Mactan is 20 times more visitor-friendly than NAIA.

And both are privately-run.

Let us be realistic. Pouring billions, even private money, into the NAIA complex makes little sense when we know that there are the Clark, Cebu, Panglao, Palawan and others where direct flights from foreign capitals can be maximized, and likewise relieve domestic travelers from bearing with Metro-Manila’s crazy traffic only to be punished by three long hours of lining up at the NAIA.

And Bulacan is coming up, probably Sangley later. But our tourism woes do not end with our NAIA terminal problems, nor our promotional gimmicks without focused market strategies.

So writing this article, I have to come up with a second part next week.

the displaced. He was determined to find a place among the country’s fighters, and after several trips was accepted into the Georgian Legion, which includes many foreign members.

He is not the legion’s first recruit from Japan, and his acceptance was eased by a compatriot, who goes by Haru-san and has acknowledged previously belonging to the yakuza—the Japanese mafia.

Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili told AFP the unit currently counts eight Japanese among troops from 33 nationalities in its ranks.

“They are very motivated, very disciplined and easily master the training they are undergoing now,” he said.

Against government advice

While many of the foreign fighters who have flocked to Ukraine from other countries come with military and combat experience, Japan’s unique constitutional constraints mean its volunteers start as absolute novices.

And when Ukraine’s embassy in Tokyo initially called for volunteers to join the fight—echoing an invitation by Zelensky

AFTER the fighting has stopped, what is there to do in Muslim Mindanao?

With the comprehensive peace agreement between the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front having led to the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the task now is to find ways to ensure lasting peace and promote sustainable development. Restoring peace and order in Muslim Mindanao is a priority of the Philippine National Police.

This was underscored by PNP Chief Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. recently when he gave assurances in a recent gathering of BARMM leaders called the LGU Fellowship Program on Social Cohesion and Resilience that the institution will “continue to work hand-inhand with LGUs, civil society organizations, and communities to break down barriers, build bridges of understanding and pave the way for peace and progress.”

The meeting, organized by Project CIRCLE (Communities of Inclusion and Resilience through Collaborative Local

Engagements) brought together a pioneering batch of leaders from different towns in Basilan, Lanao del Sur, and Maguindanao del Sur to discuss innovative polices, programs and plans to counter violent extremism and consolidate gains already achieved in promoting social harmony, sustainability and resilience in BARMM.

The integration of former Muslim rebels into the PNP is part and parcel of the peace agreements between the government and the MNLF/MILF

The message delivered by the country’s top cop before the gathering of BARMM leaders is timely and appropriate as the PNP will be taking a lead role along with the military in maintaining peace and order in