BARMM builds town hall in Sulu's island town

COTABATO CITY – The interior ministry of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is fulfilling its promise of putting up municipal hall of Lugus, an island town of Sulu.

“Our journey continued on to the island municipality of Lugus in Sulu. To get to Lugus, we needed to cross the Siasi channel, a body of water that separates the group of islands in the province of Sulu and the cluster of islands of the province of Tawi Tawi.

This is also where the Celebes Sea meets the Sulu Sea.

“The old folks in South Ubian were telling us any newcomer to the islands will always be greeted with a rough sea by the channel,” Sinarimbo said as he led his team from the island town of Tabawan in Tawi-Tawi to Lugus.

“True enough, the sea was rough and I was concerned, though I maintained a stoic face, because some of us do not even know how to swim,” he said.

“Engr. Bob, our PMDD Chief was monitoring our progress through an app in his mobile phone and was complaining that the direction of the speedboat was towards Pangutaran and not Lugus,” he recalled.

“Our expert speedboat navigator nonetheless persisted and we were all showered with seawater as the boat battles the wave,” Sinarimbo added.

“In the end we were all relieved when the operator gradually moved towards the right and we saw the island municipality of Lugus. These expert sea navigators are a master of their craft,” he said.

Lugus Mayor Hadar Hajiri welcomed Sinarimbo’s group and ushered them into his house which also serves as the temporary municipal hall of Lugus.

When asked by the accompanying journalists in our Team why he has bed in his office, he jokingly said that he has been hosting this municipality in his house for a long time.

After a sumptuous and most exotic seafood in the island, the meeting ended and they proceeded the groundbreaking program of the municipal hall building.

“It was here last year when we committed to give this municipality its permanent municipal hall. We also signed the MOA for the desalination machine for this municipality,” he said.

“It was in this island municipality, too, where I first saw how difficult the situation of lack of potable water in the islands. As we were docking here last year, I saw a boatload of people with plastic containers and I asked the Mayor where are those people heeding. He told me they were bound for Siasi to fetch drinking water. Imagine crossing that channel every day to fetch water!”

“It was then that I made a resolve to provide solution to this urgent problem of our people in the islands. I am glad we are fulfilling that promise now,” the smiling BARMM interior minister said. (EOF)