Cotabato City—The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will vigorously push programs and strategies to improve from latest poverty index released from 2018 government surveys by the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Initial steps with immediate impact to working families are jobs created by programs and projects of the Ministry of the Environment, Natural Resources and Energy, Ministry of the Interior and Local Government, and the Ministry of Public Works, officials said.
BARMM officially started on Feb. 25, 2019 when Chief Minister Ahod Hadji Murad Balawag Ibrahim assumed office along with 78 other Presidential appointees to the Parliament of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority.
Hundreds of former combatants and their families have enlisted as contractual “Palaw Rangers” for the region’s reforestation and forest preservation program, protection of riverbanks and bridges from waterway clogging earth-mass of hard marsh grass and hyacinths, as well as in ongoing construction works for repair and building of roads and bridges.
BARMM Executive Secretary Abdulraof Macacua said that in a meeting middle of last year, President Rodrigo Duterte told Ibrahim to push for the development of the Ligawasan Marsh—“because Ligawasan Marsh is yours,” he quoted the President as saying on July 6, 2019.
BARMM MILG Minister Naguib Sinarimbo, who was also present during that meeting, said more long-term programs were designed to improve the region’s poverty situation from the 2018 figures in the tenure of its forerunner, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Poverty incidence rose in provinces now covered by the BARMM, with 6 out of 10 among its population unable to earn enough income for food and non-food needs in 2018, according to the PSA.
BARMM is made up of the five former ARMM provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, and 63 barangays of five towns of (North) Cotabato Province.
In 2018, 61.3 percent of Filipinos in ARMM had per capita income insufficient to meet basic food and non-food needs, said PSA BARMM Director Razulden Mangelen.
For long-term economic foresight, the BARMM government under Ibrahim intends to open the Ligawasan Marsh, initially by reconstructing old Cotabato provincial roads connecting Pikit, Cotabato to riverside villages, and across Mindanao River to Buluan and Rajah Buayan towns in Maguindanao. These roads were built during the early period of the American colonial government, represented by the then Department of Mindanao and Sulu in the 1900s.
BARMM has fixed shares from national taxes and customs collections for a provision of P70 billion block grant from the national government. President Duterte has directed the Department of Budget and Management to “release whatever is due to BARMM to the last centavo,” Budget Secretary Wendel Aviisado was quoted as saying in a recent meeting with Moro officials.
Sinarimbo, who is also Ibrahim’s spokesperson, said the reopening of these roads will show more development potentials of the 2,200 square-kilometer marsh, than the long-drawn state-sponsored natural gas exploration.
He said more than vast economic prospect, Ibrahim wanted a trust fund established to manage substantial part of government revenues from any regional exploration of Ligawasan for natural gas extraction.
Under Republic Act 11054, the Bangsamoro Organic Law, BARMM shares power of control over management of the marsh with the national government.
The fledgling BARMM administration had reportedly wanted the President to relinquish the national government’s share of that power to the regional government via an executive order. But a paper that Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi had sent to Malacanang was apparently opposed to that proposition.
A trust fund, Sinarimbo said, can support various social programs, including college scholarship for the youth, healthcare, shelter and the development of the socio-economic well-being of residents, giving priority to families of decommissioned former combatants of the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Minister Edward Guerra of the BARMM Ministry of Public Works said better roads can expose the ecotourism and biodiversity and research potentials of Ligawasan Marsh, and by utilizing eco-friendly exploration approach to extraction of natural gas and other fossil fuel deposits.
Sinarimbo said Marsh fishing as the residents’ traditional occupation will be supported with inputs, as well as modern technical know-how to include preservation and protection of the huge natural catchment as a bastion of flora and fauna.
He said efforts are also being put in place to improve on LGUs’ revenue generation through intensive local tax collection, and possibly expand its coverage under the autonomous character of the regional government.
In BARMM, community projects allotted for the Sanggunian Kabataan would no longer be limited to sports facilities and materials. The MILG-BARMM will help them engage into entrepreneurial activities, self-sustaining, income-generating projects, Sinarimbo said.
BARMM will also help small markets entrepreneurs by capacitating, and improving their skills through training, and by granting local government units (LGUs) with market buildings where such infrastructure facilities were prior deemed feasible, he said.