BARMM cites 54 local governments for efficiency

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — More than 50 local government units received Friday efficiency citations from the Bangsamoro government,  a pioneering system meant to boost functionality of LGUs in the infant autonomous region.

The periodic grant starting this year of the Local Government Functional Appraisal Award, or LoGFA, for LGUs in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is an activity of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government-BARMM.

The program is similar with the annual grant of the Seal of Good Local Governance, or SGLG citation, by the office of Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año for deserving LGUs in all parts of the country.

BARMM’s local government minister, lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, and Abdullah Cusain, assistant executive secretary in the office of Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod Balawag Ebrahim, led Friday’s grant of LoGFA awards to 54 LGUs from across the autonomous region.

The now 23-month Bangsamoro region covers the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.

Among the recipients of BARMM’s first ever LoGFA awards were the popular municipalities of Maluso and Upi in the provinces of Basilan and Maguindanao, respectively.

Maluso, known as the former “shabu capital of Basilan,” thrice received in recent years an SGLG from the central office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Peace and sustainable development have markedly been spreading around Maluso after the first election to office in 2016 of its second-termer mayor, Hanie Bud, former manager of the Regional Ports Management Authority of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

“Our efforts to make our municipality become peaceful and progressive can never take off without the help of the police, the military and the Muslim and Christian community leaders under my office,” Bud said.

The LGU of Upi, under Mayor Ramon Piang Sr., received four SGLGs from DILG’s central office from between 2015 to 2019.

Upi, a hinterland town in the first district of Maguindanao, is the main bastion of the Bangsamoro region’s non-Moro indigenous Teduray community.

The multi-awarded Piang, who was principal of a Catholic school in Upi prior to his entry to politics, is an ethnic Teduray tribal timuay, or chieftain.

A number of LGUs, among them that of Datu Blah Sinsuat in Maguindanao, also received during Friday’s event, held at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex in the 32-hectare BARMM compound in Cotabato City, special awards for having cleared constituent-barangays from trafficking of illegal drugs.

Sinarimbo and Cusain also facilitated the release of awards with cash incentives to exemplary barangay governments and cause-oriented groups for having efficient community peace and security programs and for addressing clan wars via traditional conflict-resolution practices.

Friday’s awarding rites was capped off with the launching of BARMM government’s yearly grant, starting this year, of the Salamat Excellence Award for Leadership, or SEAL, for deserving local executives.