Military Halts Rescue Operations For Kidnapped Aid Workers In South RP

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / September 17, 2009) – The Philippine military halted operations to rescue two aid workers being held by the Abu Sayyaf on the island of Basilan to pave way for a peace negotiation for their early release.

Militants are holding Esperancita Hupida and Millet Mendoza after they were kidnapped Monday on a village in Tipo-Tipo town. Five other aid workers from the Christian Children’s Fund had either escaped or freed by the Abu Sayyaf, authorities said.

Hupida is the program director of the Nagdilaab Foundation, while Mendoza was a former staff worker at the Office of Presidential Adviser to the Peace Process (OPAPP).

Basilan Deputy Governor Alrasheed Sakalahul, head of the local crisis management committee, and Father Angel Calvo, of the Peace Advocates Zamboanga, are helping to secure the safe release of the hostages. But there have been no reports about the fate of two aid workers.

“We have temporarily stopped the (rescue) operations to give way to peaceful negotiations for the release of the victims,” said Marine commander, Colonel Domingo Valdez.

Different humanitarian and solidarity groups have condemned the kidnappings.

“Mesdames Hupida and Mendoza are compassionate and morally courageous persons who have braved, as we know they continue to brave, the dangers of working in conflicted, violence-prone areas, particularly Basilan.”

“They deserve to be treated with the same compassion and moral decency by those who come into contact with them, but especially those who they serve whether directly and indirectly,” the Inter-Religious Solidarity Movement for Peace said in statement on Wednesday.

The Christian Children's Fund and the Nagdilaab Foundation are both active in various peace and humanitarian projects in Basilan.

The military tagged the Abu Sayyaf group under Puruji Indama and Nur Hassan Jamiri as behind Monday kidnappings.

Calvo said the hostages are community development workers who have been serving the Muslim areas in Basilan for many years now. He said the victims were on their way back to Isabela City from a meeting with town officials when the gunmen flagged down their vehicles.

The Nagdilaab Foundation spun off the Isabela Foundation, which was organized many years ago by the Roman Catholic prelature of Basilan to provide community and humanitarian help to poor residents in the province.

The CCF, an international child-sponsorship group based in Virginia in the United States, has worked in the Philippines since 1954 and has been assisting more than 453,000 children and their families and contributed more than $7.8 million for community programs in the country.

The Abu Sayyaf also kidnapped nine people in recent months in Basilan and sent letters to Christians living on the island threatening them with harm if they do not embrace Islam. The letters were signed by Indama and Jamiri. (Mindanao Examiner)

Zamboanga City Has New Social Center For Street Children

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 29 Jul) – Filipino officials on Sunday inaugurated a P4-million social center for street children whose funding came partly from the Spanish foundation Manos Unidas.

Called the Akay Kalinga Center, the building have two dormitories, a guest room and a library, a conference and an office and also showers and toilets, a terrace and a playground.

Akay Kalinga, a Filipino term which means “caring guidance.”
Mayor Celso Lobregat and project proponent Spanish priest Fr Angel Calvo and Zamboanga City Archbishop Romulo Valles led officials in the inauguration.

“This center shows how much our community can do together for our street children, who in biblical terms are the most vulnerable members of our society," Rev. Valles said in a statement released by Peace Advocate Zamboanga headed by Fr Calvo.

“Today, I dedicate this house to the street children of the city, in behalf of the church. This center is a humble parable of the meaning of love and care and dedication. With this, we walk with our street children in their aspiration for a life of dignity and security and peace,” Fr Calvo said.

Those who stay in the center will also be given scholarships grants.

“Our street children need everybody's assistance and the Akay Kalinga is part of the solution to the problem. This building is a monument of love and care for them,” Mayor Lobregat said.

Last year, the Spanish government thru Manos Unidas also granted the Philippines P50-million for the construction of a five-hectare housing project for poor families in Ayala district in Makati City.

In June, Spain granted a P40-million, two-year educational project that will benefit Filipino students and teachers in Zamboanga City and nearby Zamboanga Sibugay province, coinciding with the celebration Friday of the Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day.

Called the Acceso a la Educacion y Mejora de la Calidad Educativa en Colegios de la Peninsula de Zamboanga (Improving the Access and Quality of Education in the Schools of the Zamboanga Peninsula), the project by the Agencia Español Cooperacion International and Fundacion Humanismo Y Democracia, both charity arms of the Spanish government, and the Philippine Business for Social Project (PBSP), is expected to benefit more than 23,000 elementary and secondary students, including teachers and parents-teachers community associations in the three pilot areas in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

It aims to provide scholarship assistance to more than 2,000 poor and deserving students, and establish a 15-cubicles speech laboratory worth P1.2 million to increase the proficiency of the students in English and also to help promote and preserve the local Chavacano language, a unique mixture of Spanish and other Filipino dialects.