COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Students in three island municipalities of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) are now using world-class school buildings prescribed by Japanese experts and built through the ARMM Social Fund Project (ASFP), officials proudly announced Tuesday.

Barangay Dalo-Dalo in Sapa-Sapa, and Imam Sapie in Sitangkai town, Tawi-Tawi, and Tandu-Bato in Luuk, Sulu are among the village-recipients of the ASFP’s P34 million strategic regional infrastructure (SRI) subprojects funded through a loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), ASFP media specialist Irene Fernandez said in a report.

“Composed of eight classrooms and two-storey school building each, the subprojects belong to the 3rd batch of SRI’s completed and turned-over in recent separate rites and are now being used by the beneficiaries and the proponent agency, the Department of Education (DepEd) in the ARMM,” Fernandez said.

ASFP Project Manager Nasser G. Sinarimbo said the completed subprojects are the region’s contribution to the national goal of providing quality education to help address the prevailing problem on insufficient number of classrooms.

“Striving to help improve the lives of the region’s more than four million people, the present ARMM administration under acting Regional Governor Ansaruddin Alonto Adiong is serious on pursuing programs especially on quality education,” Sinarimbo said.

“We believed that education is a catalyst of development, a key to peace and long-term means against poverty,” the ASFP official averred.

As this developed, Sinarimbo expressed his gratitude to the Japanese government through the JICA for its relentless assistance to the ARMM, despite the recent devastations caused by earthquake and tsunami.

“Having all these projects, let us not forget to thank the government of Japan for its continuing efforts to help our region despite the recent calamity experienced by its people. Japan through JICA is a strong force for the autonomous region to cope with the present and future socio-economic challenges,” Sinarimbo said.

Naoyuki Ochiai, First Secretary of the Japan Embassy, expressing satisfaction over the projects implemented, reminded the recipients to maintain and improve the facilities to make them more comfortable to end-users since funds used are part of the loan.

Ochiai cited the obvious joy of recipient-school officials, one of them Elmah Ballabato, principal of the Mantabuan National High School in Barangay Dalo-Dalo, Sapa-Sapa, Tawi-Tawi, who exclaimed that “We don’t have enough words to describe our fulfillment and our gratitude to Japan especially the JICA.”

Ruby Sahali, former ARMM’s Department of Social Welfare and Development secretary and now vice governor of Tawi-Tawi said that “We are elated over the regional government’s focus these days on the development of far-flung areas lacking access to development interventions.”

Referring to Sitangkai, the country’s southernmost town-recipient of ARMM attention, Sahali assured that the provincial government would help the ASFP initiatives felt fully in their areas, even as she cited recipient-residents’ commitment to preserve the modern school buildings.

At present, the ASFP has turned-over at least seven high school buildings with 56 classrooms, complementing 475 classrooms for elementary schools, 153 of which are funded by JICA and the rest by World Bank and implemented by people’s organizations (POs) through the Community Development Assistance (CDA) component of the project.

JICA’s assistance to ASFP started in 2003 and its project life has been extended until December 2012, while World Bank’s support will continue up to 2013 following the approval of the Additional Financing.

The turnover rites on the island provinces were attended by Major General Dato Mahdi Yusof, head of mission of the International Monitoring Team (IMT) in the ARMM.