(First of 2 parts)
Pigcayawan, Cotabato—The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is paving its long road to improve governance and socioeconomic activities at village level, engaging communities that saw the beginnings, the peak as well as the lowest point of the Moro dissidence in the seventies.
Now being connected by concrete roads are communities of Moros, as well as members of Filipino Indigenous Tribes and Christian settlers in this old town of Cotabato Province.
BARMM Chief Minister Ahod Balawag Al Hadj Murad Ebrahim, who was then vice-chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), had to move to and from the plains of Barangay Datu Binasing and the interior village of Bager to the marshland of Libungan, Kabuntalan and Gambar in times of intense operations launched by government forces.
On Tuesday, BARMM Senior Minister Abdulraof Macacua opened the first of road concreting projects to connect all 63 barangays of Cotabato Province that opted to become territorial and administrative part of the autonomous region in the February 2019 plebiscite.
BARMM Interior and Local Governments Minister Naguib Sinarimbo said BARMM’s Bangsamaoro Integrated Rehabilitation Development (BIRD) Program covers the 63 villages as BARMM’s Special Geographic Area (SGA).
The road reopened in modern day was the old main way adjoining the Pigcawayan-Nuling Section of Davao-Cotabato Highway. But the national government had to keep the public off a leprosarium along this route and opened the present route via Crossing Simuay during the period of the leprosy pandemic in the 1950s. This situation has isolated the communities in almost half a century.
To Ebrahim, these communities deserve more than just “giving back.” The BARMM through the Bangsamaoro Integrated Rehabilitation Development (BIRD) Program delivers development programs, based on barangay needs-assessment and improve on the village governance along with implementation of infrastructure and livelihood projects to spur economic development.
Ebrahim has designated a team of young men and women to determine community needs. The residents wanted and had the socio-economic development package initially in the form of roads and social infrastructure projects, inland motorized boats for fishing with inboard engine, and a net in each set, pre- and post-harvest facilities like irrigation system and mechanical drier. (Next: Signs of Time come, seen in peaceful environment)