Basilan receives `Galing Pook’ Award from BBM
GOVERNANCE/POLITICS • 16:45 PM Wed Nov 23, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
Besides Basilan, nine other LGUs received the Galing Pook Awards in Malacañang. (From Basilan provincial government)
COTABATO CITY - The Basilan provincial government received from President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. Tuesday the vaunted Galing Pook Award in recognition of its gains in its domestic peace and development initiatives.
Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman received the award from the President in Malacañang, in the presence of government officials, among them Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, Local Government Secretary Benjamin Abalos, Jr. and Mel Senen Sarmiento of the Galing Pook Foundation.
The grant of the Galing Pook Award to deserving LGUs was pioneered by the national government and the Galing Pook Foundation in 1993.
The Salliman administration was recognized for its peace efforts that paved the way for the surrender in batches, since 2016, of 364 members of the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan.
The former Abu Sayyaf members from different towns in Basilan have been reintegrated into mainstream communities, where they now thrive peacefully as farmers, fishermen and entrepreneurs.
The municipal governments of Alcala in Cagayan, Goa in Camarines Sur, Libertad in Antique, Ityabat in Batanes, Pulilan in Bulacan, Biñan in Laguna, the city government of Iloilo, the provincial government of Bataan and the barangay government of Cayabu in Tanay, Rizal also received --- for efficiency in governance and for having programs meant to hasten delivery of basic services to constituent communities --- the Galing Pook Award during Tuesday’s awarding rite in Malacañang
Salliman told reporters via online Messenger Wednesday credit for their provincial government’s having received the Galing Pook Award 2022 should go to the league of mayors in Basilan, the local Muslim and Christian communities, the police and the military.
He said he is also grateful to the different ministries of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the office of Basilan Rep. Mujiv Hataman for supporting the peace and development projects of the provincial governor's office that drastically weakened the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the province.