Cotabato execs pledge support to ‘infant’ BARMM towns

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local executives in Cotabato have reassured of their support for the joint peacebuilding activities of two Moro fronts and the national government in eight newly-created Bangsamoro towns in their province.

The municipalities of Pahamuddin, Kadayangan, Nabalawag, Old Kaabakan, Kapalawan, Malidegao, Tugunan and Ligawasan covers 63 barangays that originally belonged to different towns in Cotabato in Region 12. The eight towns were created only last year via separate enabling measures by the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament. 

The Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which have separate peace agreements with the national government, both have enclaves in the eight towns, which are now recognized as "peace zones" by the police and the military.

Radio reports on Sunday stated that reelected and newcomer municipal officials from across Cotabato had, during informal dialogues last week, assured their governor, Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, to help push forward her administration’s security and humanitarian programs in the eight fledgling Bangsamoro towns.

“We are happy with this development. Imagine? The barangays covered by these Bangsamoro towns are no longer under the jurisdiction of their local government units but there is still this commitment," Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua said on Sunday.

Radio reports had also stated that among the mayors who had assured to help sustain the public service initiatives of their provincial government for the eight Bangsamoro towns is Midsayap Mayor Rolly Sacdalan.

More than dozen barangays in Midsayap became part of the autonomous region, grouped together last year as the Kadayangan and Nabalawag towns, after local residents voted in favor of the inclusion of their ancestral domains into the proposed core territory of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao via a plebiscite in 2019.

Macacua, also a senior official of the MILF, and BARMM Labor Minister Muslimin Sema, who is chairman of the MNLF, separately told reporters on Sunday that it was for the Cotabato provincial government’s not having terminated its public service activities in the eight Bangsamoro towns that they supported Taliño-Mendoza’s bid for a second term during the May 12 elections.

“She got reelected. We are happy about it. We also gave the same support to her favored candidates for mayors, vice mayors and councilors from whose territories the barangays now comprising the eight Bangsamoro towns were carved from,” Sema said.

Talino-Mendoza, chairperson of the multi-sector Regional Development Council 12 covering four provinces and four cities in Central Mindanao, said it is important to keep the connectivity of residents in the eight Bangsamoro towns with trading centers, hospitals and schools in different areas in Cotabato province.

“The doors to our provincial capitol and the municipal government centers in our province remained open to residents of these Bangsamoro towns even if they are no longer administratively and politically attached to us,” Taliño-Mendoza said.