KORONADAL CITY -- The Japanese Embassy announced Wednesday some P363 million in new assistance package to the southern Philippines as Tokyo called on the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to resume the stalled peace process.

Some P193 million is earmarked for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), the country's poorest region, for the construction of a Japan-Armm friendship hall and training center and equipment for road improvement, Japanese Charge d'Affaires ad interim Hidenobu Sobashima, said in a statement.

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The Japanese government also disclosed the approval of some P170 million to finance a computer literacy project for public high schools in Mindanao, the Japanese official said in a separate statement.

These financial aids to Mindanao fall under the Japanese Non-Project Grant Assitance-Countervalue Fund (NPGA-CVF).

"[These] projects exemplify Japan's active role in the reconstruction and development of Mindanao. In this context, Japan strongly supports the efforts by all parties concerned to end the long standing conflict in Mindanao through the peace process, and strongly hopes that peace talks between the government and the MILF will be resumed immediately," Sobashima said.

The construction of the friendship hall in the autonomous Muslim region will cost P34.6 million, in which P28.8 million will be funded through the NPGA-CVF.

The hall aims to establish a training center for Human Resource Development Programs of Armm's 24 regional line agencies and adjacent administrative regions and cities.

The proposed building will house the Armm Development Academy in charge of sustaining and harmonizing the region’s Human Resource Development programs, training rooms, and conference hall, among others, the statement said.

Regarding the Equipment supply for improvement of road network in Armm, it will amount to P158 million, wherein P141.4 million will be funded through NPGA-CVF, Sobashima said.

This component aims to equip the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the autonomous Muslim region with a new fleet of equipment necessary for the construction, improvement, and maintenance of its road network.

Japan has been pouring development assistance to Armm, and among its projects in the area includes the Armm Social Fund for Peace and Development project, and the Study on Infrastructure (Road Network) Development Plan.

Meanwhile, Sobashima said his government also approved to finance the Mindanao component of phase 4 of the Personal Computers for Public Schools Project (PCPS) worth P170 million.

The project seeks to provide 10 desktop computers and computer peripherals to each of the 425 public high school beneficiaries in Mindanao, which remain to have no access to computer education.

With funding support from Japan, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has been spearheading the implementation of PCPS since June 2001.

Phases 1, 2, and 3 of PCPS, which received a total grant of approximately P1.8 billion from the Japanese government, have provided 3,714 public high schools with computers and, thus, reduced the computer backlog in secondary public education from 75 percent in 2001 to 37 percent to date, according to the statement.

The project, which is part of the government of Japan’s concrete steps to narrow the international digital divide between developed and developing countries, seeks to contribute to the Philippine government’s efforts to develop its human resource capital in the field of Information Technology, thereby enabling the country to become an IT hub. (BSS)