BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

COTABATO CITY -- Inspired by lessons from the November 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre, rival datus on Monday anointed common candidates for provincial posts at stake during the 2019 elections.The filing of certificates of candidacy for local elective positions will commence this week.Conspicuously present in Monday’s event, first ever since the election-related massacre shook the nation to its core, were the new political figureheads of the Ampatuan clan whose erstwhile leaders are now being prosecuted for the atrocity.Representatives of Maguindanao’s ruling Mangudadatu, Mastura, Midtimbang

LANAO DEL SUR - Local leaders want the police to check on a local drug ring that they blame for last week’s fatal ambush of five anti-narcotics agents in Kapai, Lanao del Sur.Meranao leaders told reporters Monday there are persistent feedback from their constituents, mostly residents of Lanao del Sur’s neighboring Kapai and Tagoloan towns, purporting that the ambushers were erstwhile henchmen of a former municipal mayor who was rumored to have once engaged in drug trafficking.Local officials said the ambush that resulted in the gory deaths of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency personnel Ken

COTABATO CITY
– The newly completed Maguindanao provincial capitol building, dubbed as the
White House of the South, is awaiting formal inauguration by President
Rodrigo Roa Duterte, local officials and stakeholders said on Sunday.

The new
capitol building is an essential part of trailblazing operations and reforms in
our provincial governance. Its inauguration by national dignitaries like the
President is fitting, Engr. Abdulrahman Asim, provincial administrator, said.

CAMP
DARAPANAN, Maguindanao – Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr, the country’s highest
military official on Saturday visited the main camp of Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) where he vowed to help campaign for approval of Bangsamoro Organic
Law.

Galvez,
accompanied by Western Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. Arnel dela Vega and 6th
Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, made the commitment
when he visited the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao where
he received a warm welcome.

COTABATO CITY – The Office of the Regional Governor in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ORG-ARMM) passed the accreditation process and attained the quality management certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-9001:2015.Following a two-day intensive evaluation on the efficacy of the ORG’s quality management system(QMS) by the TUV Rheinland Philippines Inc., the certificate was awarded on Monday, October 1.Earning the ISO 9001:2015, the latest edition of ISO’s flagship QMS standard, means that the ORG-ARMM attained the international standard and requ

COTABATO CITY – Twenty-three (23) local government units (LGUs) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) were conferred with 2018 Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG), awarded by the national Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).In an official statement released today, awardees from the region include the provincial government of Basilan, the city government of Lamitan, and 21 municipal governments acrosss the region.The ARMM ranks fifth in the country based on the number of SGLG awardees.

COTABATO CITY --- Unsuspecting Army and police personnel lost no less than P40 million to a pyramid rent-a-car and money market business that went awry just as experts had warned early on.The victims are among more than 600 people, some of them private individuals and senior officials of government agencies in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and in Administrative Region 12, now building criminal cases against the culprits.Anwar Emblawa, designated spokesman of a group of victims, said Monday they will ask Lt. Gen.

BULUAN, Maguindanao — Government statistics from official poverty surveys are largely based on average monthly family income and costs of expenditures to meet food and non-food requirements, officials said.Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu said poverty incidence might have been differently told of the province, if the people’s access to free education and healthcare, potable water and other social services were integrated and factored-in in poverty surveys.Maguindanao has had better statistics in the think-tank group Ibon Foundation’s poverty surveys, which considered those factors as

MAGUINDANAO --- The military will educate voters on the Bangsamoro Organic Law but not campaign for either an affirmative or negative vote during the January 21 plebiscite that would seal its fate.Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division said Wednesday all of their units in central Mindanao will either directly embark on educational forums or extend manpower support to dialogues on the intricacies of the BBL but on a strictly neutral position.

COTABATO CITY – The regional government of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has completed 1,599 kilometers (kms.) of roads from 2012 to 2018.Data from the region’s Public Works department also showed 508.685 kms., or 22.075% of the target, are still ongoing as of September 14 this year.