BALOI, Lanao del Norte — The Army’s 55th Engineer Brigade has been reactivated in order to help speed up the rehabilitation works for Marawi City, an official said Monday.
Brig. Gen. Ramon Ruiz, commander of the newly-reactivated unit, said their primary mission is to help rehabilitate Marawi City under the supervision of the Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM).
Ruiz said the unit — headquartered in Baloi, Lanao del Norte — was reactivated last Friday and is tasked with assisting the government’s horizontal projects such as road widening, drainage, building construction, schools, public health centers, and other government facilities.
“The focus of the Philippine Army now is to help in the inter-agency or “whole-of-nation” approach and the Armed Forces (of the Philippines) is just one of the agencies of the government under the Department of National Defense mandated to the rehabilitation of Marawi,” the Army official said.
The 55th Engineer Brigade was deactivated in 2013 as part of the defense planning guidance to streamline the organization, according to Ruiz.
“We will help through the TFBM and we will promise to do our best to attend to the welfare of the people of Marawi,” he said.
Ruiz estimated that the reactivated unit will need at least a thousand personnel for Marawi’s rehabilitation works.
|”We need the help of the media to disseminate the information that we are inviting carpenters, mason, plumbers, electricians, heavy equipment operators to enlist in the Philippine Army and be part of the organization,” Ruiz said.
Interested applicants may inquire at the nearest Army training schools, he added. -PNA
