A LEADING official from Mindanao said trade and investments are highly needed to facilitate peace and order in conflicted areas like the southern part of the Philippines and its neighboring countries in the region.
In a recent business forum during the second leg of the four-day Global Peace Convention 2017 held in Manila last February 28 to March 3, Sulu was cited as one of the areas in the Philippines that highly needs more businesses and investments to alleviate poverty and bring stability to its impoverished people.
“The problem in the south is the problem of the entire country as well as the problem of the whole Southeast Asian region,” said former Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Mahail Tan, during his talk in the forum. Tan is also the president, chairman and CEO of AMT Group of Companies.
He said perpetration not only takes place in the waters of Sulu, but even outside of the Sulu Sea.
“We hope entrepreneurs [or] big businesses would invest and bring development to the South because they can provide employment and livelihood for our people. Besides, this would redound to poverty alleviation,” he said.
Sulu, a province in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), has beautiful beaches known for their reefs, corals, shells and pearls.
Apart from its rich history, it is endowed with agricultural wealth, including major products like coconut, cassava, abaca, coffee, native mangoes, and exotic fruits including durian, mangosteen and lanzones.
Its vast aquatic resources have spawned seaweed-growing and fishing as major industries, Sulu contributes 40 percent of the total Philippine export on carrageenan.
Infrastructure-wise, it now has one major airport and three seaports (Jolo, Siasi and Maimbung). There are also five banking institutions currently located here.
Despite all these developments, however, poverty incidence in Sulu remains high at 61.8 percent.
Tan said economic development in their province is being hampered by instability, unrest and a long-running separatist insurgency. He said the lack of livelihood opportunities and development has contributed to the problem on peace and order in the region.
“We felt neglected. While we were trading in the past, we became the backdoor. Now, they call us [the] ‘backdoor,’ but we were [actually the] ‘front door.’ We were not economic in volume, but civilizations started in our area. We are looking at trade and investment, as well as economic development as the answers to our problem in the South,” Tan said.
As to the erritorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, there is now a “glimmer of hope” that the conflict of the Philippines and other Asean claimants (Malaysia and Vietnam with China) would be resolved one way or the other.