ARMM breaks ground on Maguindanao housing project

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao officials have broken ground on a housing project seen to benefit battle-scarred seaside communities in Maguindanao.

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao-Bangsamoro Regional Inclusive Development for Growth and Empowerment, or ARMM-BRIDGE, will build 100 core houses in the coastal municipality of Datu Blah Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and local officials led by Datu Blah Mayor Raida Tomawis-Sinsuat and spouse Marshall led the launch of the project on Wednesday.

The ARMM-BRIDGE program is focused on providing impoverished barangays with four basic amenities — food, clean water, shelter and electricity.

It covers all of the ARMM’s five provinces, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

The ARMM-BRIDGE will build 50 houses in Barangay Pura and 50 more in Barangay Matuber, which were badly affected by hostilities between government forces and the Moro National Liberation Front in the 1970s.

The two barangays were also hit by a tsunami in August 1976 following a series of earthquakes also felt in other towns and cities in central Mindanao and that devastated Cotabato City.

The ARMM-BRIDGE is currently constructing hundreds of houses for poor beneficiaries across the region.

Some of the beneficiaries of the housing project are former members of the Islamic State-inspired Abu Sayyaf in Basilan who are now being reintegrated into local communities.