BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

COTABATO CITY - A vast majority of traditional Muslim schools in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and adjacent regions struggle with limited resources for their operations and aspire for government recognition to get support.

Ninety percent of 1,850 heads of traditional madaris who participated in a study conducted by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) said they are interested in government recognition, eight percent said they are unsure, while only two percent shunned the idea altogether.

LANAO DEL SUR --- An inter-agency oversight committee has declared Calanogas town in Lanao del as “drug cleared,” the first from among 39 towns in the province.

Juvenal Azurin, director for the Bangsamoro region of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, said Tuesday the declaration was premised on findings by the committee that all 17 barangays in Calanogas have been cleared from drug traffickers and dependents.

COTABATO CITY  – To further advance the planning and development of sustainable energy in the autonomous Bangsamoro region, the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Energy (MENRE-BARMM) held its first energy forum and planning workshop on August 22-23 in Cotabato City.

Minister Abdulraof Macacua of MENRE-BARMM said the forum “is aimed for us to have a plan before holding a big summit. We are planning to have an energy summit.”

COTABATO City - “Slap them, create a scene.”

This was the advice of Minister Naguib Sinarimbo of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILF-BARMM) to Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries to help Bangsamoro government end corruption and malpractices that blemished the government’s assistance for the poor.

Sinarimbo made the statement similar to President Duterte’s warning against corrupt officials during the launching of “Kapihan sa Bangsamoro” weekly conference.

COTABATO CITY --- The provincial government of Basilan, Lamitan City and two other towns in the island province are potential recipients of the 2019 Seal of Good Local Governance award.

There is a team, comprised of governance analysts, two of them from the office of Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año, now touring Basilan to evaluate the efficiency of the prospective SGLG awardees.

COTABATO CITY – In keeping with its efforts to promote transparent and moral governance, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s launched a weekly interface between its officials and the media on Monday in Cotabato City.

The weekly media forum dubbed “Kapihan sa Bangsamoro” is aimed at ensuring that the populace of the BARMM and its neighboring areas are abreast with the issues, affairs, and the developments in the new Bangsamoro region.

KUSIONG, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao -  Ricardo Fering, 81 and his wife, Lourdes, 80 could still vividly recall what went through at past midnight of August 17, 1976.

The couple was living at that time in Minandar, an uphill community fronting the Kusiong village and the seashore. They have only five children during that year until their relocation now in Kusiong and blessed with 14 children.

“That was a very strong quake, our cat in the house don’t know where to go as our hut was like a hammock in full swing,” said Lourdes in Tagalog.

DATU ODIN SINSUAT, Maguindanao — To intensify the preparedness on calamities and disaster, the Bangsamoro Risk Reduction Management Council (BDRRMC), through its Bagsamoro-Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READi), conducted a multi-hazard simulation drill on Saturday, August 17, 2019 at Barangay Kusiong, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

The activity, which aimed to determine and enhance the level of preparedness and know-how of people during calamities, involved residents in the said community.

COTABATO CITY --- Deputy Speaker Mujiv Hataman and Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim will jointly formulate an institutional program meant to return Islamist militants into mainstream society.

Hataman, while governor of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao from 2012 to February this year, and the provincial government of Basilan together worked out the return to the fold of law in the past three years of more than 200 Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the province.

COTABATO CITY --- Two of the six boom trucks the Japanese government gave this week to six power cooperatives in the Bangsamoro region went to Basilan where there is an urgent need for it.

There has been an influx lately to Basilan of investors requiring power for industries they intend to put up, among them the transnational Unifruitti and partner Lamitan Banana Corporation that are to jointly put up a 1,000-hectare Cavendish banana farm in Lamitan City.