The head of the government’s Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG) has admitted of the Herculean task in locating and safely disposing landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) scattered in various areas in Central Mindanao at the height of the fighting in the region.

Brig. Gen. Jose Vizcarra, AHJAG chair representing the Philippine government and concurrent deputy commander of the peace process of the Western Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said many of these deadly devices are found in the vast Liguasan marshland and jungles in the region.

Vizcarra said the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) teams will jointly move in tracking down and defusing landmines and unexploded devices to ensure that people in Central Mindanao and other areas will be out of harms way.

He said many live mortar and cannon shells were dropped in the Liguasan marshland during the height of fighting but did not explode. Vizcarra said they will try to recover and defuse them.

He also appealed to the MILF to report to AHJAG any landmine and unexploded ordnance they might recover in their areas so that these explosives can be defused properly.

Another task the AHJAG will have to contend with is to find unexploded bombs dropped in Mindanao during World War II.

“These explosives must be located and defused,” Vizcarra said.

An UXO is defined as an explosive ordnance that has been primed, fused, armed, or otherwise prepared for use, and may have been fired, dropped, launched, or projected yet remains unexploded either through malfunction or design or for any other reason.

Also classified as an explosive remnant of war (ERW) based on international mine action standards of the United Nations, an UXO is differentiated from abandoned explosive ordnance (AXO).

An AXO is defined as an explosive ordnance not being used during an armed conflict, left behind or dumped by a party to the armed conflict, no longer under control of the party that left it behind or dumped it, and may or may not have been primed, fused, armed, or otherwise prepared for use.

Vizcarra, at the same time, welcomed the move in banning and clearing of landmines and unexploded ordnance in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao which he said, will strengthen the peace process between the government and the MILF.

A group called Philippine Campaign to Ban Landmines (PCBL) and the Foundation Suisse de Deminage (FSD) or the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action are supporting this noble project.