Kidapawan City – Socio-economic projects of the Japanese government complementing the Mindanao peace process have dramatically improved peace and order situations in hostile villages where they were built, police and military officials said.

Japan has been actively helping push forward the 12-year-old peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) through development initiatives for impoverished communities in areas covered by the government-MILF ceasefire.

Supt. Danilo Bacas, spokesman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police, said many projects of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), such as school buildings, post-harvest facilities, farm-to-market roads, water systems, and health centers, have in fact, ushered in the amicable settlement of bloody clan wars involving Muslim families that participated in the construction, through “bayanihan,” of the JICA-funded infrastructure packages.

“More than 40 feuding clans in remote areas of ARMM have reconciled during the past 24 months when they were tapped to help build the projects along with their rival families,” Bacas said.

The ARMM’s public works department and JICA have just started winding up their multi-million-peso joint study on a regional road network program meant to interconnect trading centers, ports and seaports in the autonomous region with impoverished towns often rocked by security problems.

“Road networks are essential in fostering peace and sustainable development in the autonomous region. These can improve the region’s economy and, as a consequence, provide our people with more livelihood opportunities,” said Hadji Razul Abpi, ARMM’s regional public works chief.

Bacas said most of the projects of JICA in far-flung Muslim villages were implemented by the ARMM Social Fund Project as a community initiative involving the villagers themselves in recipient villages.

“When feuding families realize the importance of the JICA-funded projects, and construct them together, the hostility among them wanes and they reconcile even before the projects are completed,” Bacas said.

The Japanese-assisted projects are being implemented under the joint supervision of Malacañang and the ARMM’s chief executive, Datu Zaldy Uy Ampatuan.