BARMM’s civil aeronautics board activated

COTABATO CITY - The three-year Bangsamoro regional government now has a civil aeronautics board that business communities and local government units in the region support, officials said Saturday.

Paisalin Tago, transportation and communications minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters Saturday members of the newly-organized Civil Aeronautics Board of the Bangsamoro, or CABB, met last week and agreed to cooperate in carrying out its public service mandate.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines devolved early this year to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-BARMM its functions in overseeing the airports in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte, in Jolo, Sulu and in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi.

“We are grateful to the national government, particularly to President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., for helping make the BARMM government become a functional regional government,” Tago said Saturday.

Minister Naguib Sinarimbo of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government, said Saturday the BARMM regional leadership aims to improve the airports in the autonomous region to boost the confidence of foreign investors, which is essential in trying to lure them in.

The Ministry of the Interior and Local Government has various capacity-building programs for the police and local government units covering areas where airports in the autonomous region are located.

Tago, also a member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro interim parliament, said the creation of the CABB had the “full imprimatur” of the national government.

The regional government’s CABB has powers to investigate and address public complaints pertaining to airport operations.

“The board, in a way, can ensure efficiency of airports that are now under our control and management,” Tago said.

Sinarimbo, regional spokesperson of BARMM, said one of their governance goals is to build public trust on all agencies of the Bangsamoro government.

Sinarimbo, who is chairperson of the multi-sector Regional Advisory Group of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said the MILG and units of PRO-BAR, presently under Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, are to cooperate in providing security support to the MOTC’s operation of airports in the region.

In separate statements this week, officials of the Bangsamoro Business Council and influential groups of Chinese traders in Cotabato City and in Maguindanao del Norte manifested recognition of the CABB and assured to support its operation in the autonomous region.