A TOTAL of 104 former rebels, militia men, and supporters in Davao Region joined the Community Integrators Forum (CIF) as part of the government’s continuous peace efforts.
The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority Davao regional office (Tesda-11), together with the Peace 911 of the city government of Davao and the 16th Infantry Battalion, spearheaded the CIF last April 4 and 5 at the Regional Training Center-Korea Philippines Vocational Training Center (RTC-KPVTC) in Tibungco.
Bayani Gofredo, Tesda provincial director for Davao del Sur and Davao City, said the forum serves as the first phase of the implementation of the Executive Order 70 (EO70).
“As part of the implementation of EO70, that aims to institutionalize the whole nation approach in attaining inclusive and sustainable peace, creating a national task force to end local communist armed conflict and directing the adoption of a national peace framework recently signed by President Duterte, Tesda pledged its full support and cooperation in preventing and addressing local communist armed conflict in the country,” Gofredo said on Friday, April 5.
Prior to the signing of the executive order, he said the agency already initiated a similar program for surrenderers.
Over 20 government agencies participated in the forum that tackled their different interventions and services.
The program assisted 165 rebels since the program was implemented in 2018.
Although the program does not specify any time frame for its results, Gofredo said that they hope returnees would be able to return to their peaceful lives, and have decent jobs.
Another output of the forum was the profiling of each community integrators to determine the skills training suited for the returnees in their respective areas.
Gofredo said that Tesda will also prepare scholarship programs for the qualified family of returnees as soon as possible.
“What President Duterte mandated is that, as soon as possible, we will be able to complete the interventions before the end of the year, for us to see the results of the EO70,” he said.