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Piñol to stop food aid to Pikit after March
30 By ROMER S. SARMIENTO KORONADAL CITY - Officials in North
Cotabato province have announced that food supplies from the local government
unit (LGU) to the tens of thousands of evacuees in Pikit town would be until
March 30 only, a development that is seen to spark further food crisis among
the refugees. North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol
said he talked with Pikit Mayor Farida Malingco and agreed that food
assistance by the LGU to the refugees would be extended only until Sunday. “That is because many of the
villages affected by the recent fierce gun battles have been declared safe by
the military,” said the governor on Thursday in the television news program
IBC-13 Express Balita. “Majority of the barangays has been
cleared for the evacuees’ return and there’s no reason anymore for them to
remain at the evacuation centers,” he added. But the greater reason, he said, is
this: The foods supplied by the LGU, and apparently those donated by
nongovernment organizations (NGOs), have found their way to the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF), “as proven by the recovery of empty food packages in
the hills.” Piñol said empty canned goods and
noodles must be found only within the periphery of the evacuation centers,
but they were discovered lately in the far away places frequented by the
rebels. Moreover, he claimed that in every
five kilos of rice allotted to each of some of the displaced family, two
kilos went to the MILF rebels, who, according to Piñol, are the evacuees’
relatives. Piñol, who did not say how much the
LGU is spending on food relief, said the local government would like to stop
the practice by also stopping food assistance to the evacuees. He added that stopping the local
government’s food assistance would force the evacuees to go home to their
villages which were cleared as safe by the military and would also deprive
the MILF rebels a source for their subsistence. Fr. Roberto Layson, Pikit parish
priest, earlier identified the affected barangays in Pikit as Rajamudah,
Inog-og, Talitay, Buliok, Kabasalan, Gli-gli, Barongos, Bulol, Makabual, Bago
Inged and Balong, which are near Liguasan Marsh. Piñol said that only the barangays
of Rajamudah, Kabasalan, Bulol and Buliok have not been cleared by the
military for the return of the evacuees. “The rest of the villages were
cleared.” The governor claimed that even
though their villages are declared safe, the evacuees continue to stay at the
refugee centers so they can avail themselves of the food allowance and gave
some of it to their rebel relatives. Layson said the evacuees are afraid
to go home for fear that hostilities would erupt anew in their villages
between the military and the Moro rebels. “Only a few evacuees have gone back
to their villages. The displaced persons prefer to stay here for fear of
getting hit in the crossfire. They feel they are more secure in the
evacuation centers than in their villages even though life in the evacuation
centers is difficult,” said Layson, also the interfaith dialogue coordinator
for the Archdiocese of Cotabato. Maggie Laos, a volunteer of the
nongovernment organization Balik Kalipay, told Today in a long-distance
telephone interview that some 39,000 refugees continue to languish in
evacuation centers in Pikit as of Friday. While the evacuees depended mostly
from foods donated by NGOs, Layson warned that the prolonged
stay of the tens of thousands of evacuees would eventually lead to food and
medicine shortage, at the same time expressing hope that donations would
continue to come in. He thanked those who have extended help in whatever
kind. So far 23, mostly children, have
died from different illnesses in evacuation centers in the town since the
renewed war between the military and the government broke out on February 11.
Besides lack of medicines, Layson
said the present number of medical workers and volunteers are not enough to
fully attend to the needs of the tens of thousands of evacuees. |
