Gov. Edgar Chatto has ordered a comprehensive draft of programs for better integration of former communist rebels and to prove government’s sincerity. Providing them homes cannot heal alone the “wounds” because the rebel returnees (RRs), as all other sectors in mainstream society, do have to survive economically, according to the governor. Chatto will have the Integrated Kalayaan Resettlement Management Team (IKRMT) drawing up workable programs and implementable activities to achieve the socially-sensible aim. The reintegration plan ought to assist, guide and establish the former government enemies and their families into a productive community at the resettlement project in Remedios, Danao. The IKRMT led by Liza Quirog was convened in a two-day planning workshop right in Danao which outputs her team will report once the governor gets back to Bohol.

Chatto formed the team on strength of an executive order, which further intends to ensure best management and monitoring of the reintegration of the former NPA fighters. The resettlement project in Danao has 25 housing units ready for occupation by intended pre-identified rebel returnees. But the governor said there should be proactive approaches to providing them not just human but humane living condition and economic sustainability. Provincial Administrator Alfonso Damalerio II joined the IKRMT in the opening of the workshop. The workshop result is critical to the crafting of policies and guidelines, institutional management framework, possible livelihood interventions, and community safety measures. Quirog was joined in the workshop by IKRMT members Provincial Social Welfare and Development Officer Carmelita Tecson, capitol executive assistant Engr. Gabino Redulla who heads the internal affairs division of the governor’s office, and Acting Provincial Agriculturist Larry Pamugas. Quirog, the provincial agriculturist, has also been handling the provincial government’s Social, Economic and Environmental Management (SEEM) Cluster.

Others seriously involved in the rebel reintegration brainstorming were IKRMT members Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Nestor Canda, Dr. Stella Marie Lapiz who is the provincial veterinarian, Romeo Teruel of capitol’s Bohol Center for Development Studies, Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner of the Special Forces Battalion, and Danao Mayor Thomas Louis Gonzaga. They toured the project site, assessing the 50-hectare area for farm planning and possible zoning. Last May, Chatto had the IKRMT conducting skills and values inventory workshop to the resettlement beneficiaries. Boholanos would not want failures or lapses in past RR reintegration efforts repeated because, according to them, a government is successful if it is also trusted by how it carries out its task. Pres. Benigno Aquino III recently appointed Chatto to head the Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC), a heavier responsibility but which can lead him to better responses to Bohol concerns, including that of rebel returnees. (Ven rebo Arigo)