BARMM allocate P158 million for war on COVID-19 

COTABATO CITY --- The Bangsamoro government has allocated P1 million for each of its 116 constituent-towns to sustain its region-wide anti-coronavirus containment efforts.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Friday they will start downloading the grants to recipient- local government units next week.

Sinarimbo said they have separately earmarked P5 million and P2 million grants for each of the five provincial and city governments under BARMM government, respectively.

The Bangsamoro region covers 116 towns in its five provinces --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

The region also has three cities, Cotabato, seat of the Bangsamoro government, and Marawi and Lamitan, capitals of Lanao del Sur and Basilan, respectively.

Sinarimbo said the money for the municipal, city and provincial governments under the Bangsamoro region shall be drawn from the contingency fund in the office of Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim.

“This fund support can help boost the anti-COVID-19 efforts of each recipient-LGU,” said Sinarimbo, also spokesman of the Bangsamoro government.

BARMM’s rapid deployment emergency and disaster response contingent, READI, operating under Sinarimbo’s supervision, started distributing Thursday more personal protection supplies to anti-coronavirus frontliners in government hospitals and in units of the regional police and the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division guarding quarantine checkpoints in central Mindanao.

The supplies were brought to Cotabato City by a military C-130 aircraft early this week.