BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

BASILAN --- A backhoe of the Basilan provincial government removes large boulders from an abandoned enclave of the Abu Sayyaf in a hinterland at the border of Barangays Tumahubong in Sumisip town and Santa Clara, Lamitan City.

Engineers will construct in the area the remaining three-kilometer stretch of the highway traversing the highland rainforests in the center of Basilan province.

Misguided Islamic militants had built enclaves, from between 2003 to 2010, on the hills now traversed by newly-constructed stretches of the Basilan Transcentral Highway there.

COTABATO CITY --- The cadaver of the 40-year-old Noah Ibay II, one of two residents here who died in a sea mishap July 17 in Phuket, Thailand arrived in Cotabato City Tuesday morning.

He and companion Angelo Cortez, 27, were drowned when big waves battered the Freedom Beach in Phuket while vacationing there along with 11 other friends from this city.

Some 200 relatives fetched Ibay’s remains at the Maguindanao Airport and were brought by a convoy of 112 vehicles to their hometown, Matanog, in the first district of Maguindanao.

COTABATO CITY  – The signing and ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) is President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s major accomplishment in the pursuit of achieving long lasting peace in Mindanao.

The BOL is the result of a two-decade peace negotiation between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Government of the Philippines.

COTABATO CITY --- Former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman, now congressman in Basilan, voted for Taguig City-Pateros Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano in Monday’s election of speaker in the House of Representatives.

Hataman’s staunch political ally, the erstwhile three-termer Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, now congressional representative of the second district of Maguindanao, also selected Cayetano from among nominees.

Mangudadatu was governor of Maguindanao, covering 36 towns in two congressional districts, from 2010 to June 30, 2019.

COTABATO CITY  – The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) today announced the death of second Filipino pilgrim in the Holy Land.

Speaking for the NCMF Jun Alonto-Datu Ramos identified the pilgrim as Enting Tungao Kamensa, 66, of Datu Piang, Maguindanao.

Dr. Abdulnasser Masorong, NCMF hajj-supervising medical team head in a report to NCMF, said Kamensa “lost consciousness” due to cardiac arrest inside the Masjidil Haraam in Makkah at about 3:30p.m. Saturday.

COTABATO CITY - The Bangsamoro Government's Ministry of Interior and Local Government is spearheading the drafting of the Bangsamoro local government code, one of the priority legislations entrusted to the Bangsamoro Transition Authority.

Al-Hajj Murad Ebrahim, BARMM chief minister noted that the Bangsamoro Local Government Code is one of the important codes to be passed by the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) as it "will clearly define the relationship between the LGUs and the Bangsamoro government."

ISABELA CITY --- Their lives were troubled with misguided Islamic militancy and so they changed for good to start again via mainstream literacy.

More than 40 erstwhile members of the feared Abu Sayyaf in Basilan on Thursday completed along with 500 others a government Alternative Learning System (ALS) program as part of their reintroduction into mainstream communities in the island province.

COTABATO CITY – National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) Secretary Noel Felongco vowed to help the Bangsamoro Government reduce poverty incidence in the region.

He said NAPC will gather local chief executives, planning officers, and BARMM ministers to orient them on the Commission’s poverty alleviation projects.

ISABELA CITY ---- For the first time in about 20 years, residents here saw Tuesday a new local chief executive eat street food sold by a lowly vendor right along a busy thoroughfare.

Isabela City Mayor Sitti Djalia Turabin-Hataman was on her way home from office when she asked her driver to pull over along a seaside road to buy and eat street food peddled by ambulant vendors.

The mayor seemed unmindful of security risks, as shown in Facebook photos posted by supporters, as if forgetting she is now an elected official who has to be conscious of her safety.

COTABATO CITY  –  A Memorandum of Agreement advancing children's rights was signed by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Regional Government, Save the Children Philippines and the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS) on Monday, July 1, 2019 in Cotabato City.

The Ministry on Social Services (MSS), Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Interior and Local Government (MILG), and Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHT) are among the local partners of the said non-government organizations that support and promote the rights of children, particularly in Mindanao.