BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

MAGUINDANAO - Authorities cordoned Buluan town on Saturday as part of the security preparations for the February 5 to 14 first ever Inaul Festival in Maguindanao province.The festival will showcase the Inaul fabric, a strong identity icon of the ethnic Maguindanaons, also known as central Mindanao’s people of the flooded plains, or communities along the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta.Senior Supt.

COTABATO CITY -- Responding to the announcement by the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) that cross-border trade with Sabah, Malaysia will be resumed starting February 1, 2017, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) today sent adelegation to the 2017 Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Strategic Planning Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia.The regional commerce and trade meeting started today until February 3 and the sending of ARMM delegates was part of its commitment to the Philippine contingent to reciprocate by agreeing to open cross-border

COTABATO CITY– Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has officially declared the Polloc Freeport and Ecozone in Parang, Maguindanao as ‘halal hub’, the first truly halal ecozone in the country. The ARMM government is continually working to open the possibilities to the halal market in the region as well as in the country that serves as a gateway to the multi-trillion dollar halal industry, Gov. Hataman said.The declaration of a halal economic zone will attract local and foreign investors to export and import halal products and services.

COTABATO CITY --- The office of Davao City Mayor Sarah Duterte delivered here on Saturday some 30 tons of food for flood-stricken villagers in the adjoining Pagalungan and Montawal towns in Maguindanao.The donated relief supplies were transported from Davao City to the 32-hectare compound here of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) by the mayor’s subordinate-employees.

MAGUINDANAO -- President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday urged Mindanao’s two Moro fronts to deny sanctuary to emerging groups rising in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.Duterte said he will not hesitate to flex the strength of the Armed Forces in neutralizing terrorists holding out in any camp of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).Duterte made his appeal to the MILF and the MNLF before hundreds of enlisted personnel and officers of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division during his visit to Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindan

MAGUINDANAO --- Dozens of peasant Moro and Teduray families were dislocated by the running firefights between law enforcement teams and followers of a wanted narco-politician on Thursday in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.

MARAWI CITY -- Authorities were elated with the pledge of the Ayala Foundation to put up a drug reformatory center here in support of the city government’s anti-narcotics campaign.Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, regional police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, on Wednesday said the project will complement the efforts of Marawi City Mayor Majul Gandamra to reintegrate reformed drug dependents into mainstream society.The construction of the center will commence in February, according to Salma Jayne Tamano, provincial information officer of Lanao del Sur.

COTABATO CITY- A lawmaker representing the Anak Mindanao (AMIN) party-list has underscored giving value to traditional art by way of respecting its heritage including giving recognition to its origin and the local community from where it came from.In a privilege speech at the House of Representatives on Monday, January 23, Rep. Sitti Djalia Turabin-Hataman said it is unfair for Basilan, her home province, to be always mentioned for something bad, negative and ugly but does not get proper credit for its beautiful and precious art.rep.

MAGUINDANAO - Floodwaters in the northern border of Maguindanao and North Cotabato have receded but agencies continued helping flood victims downed by heavy crop losses due to the calamity.The provincial government of Maguindanao delivered on Tuesday 10 tons of food supplies to Pagalungan town, where more than 8,000 families were dislocated by flashfloods that hit the area last week.The Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team (HEART) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also transported on Tuesday more than 10 tons of individual food packs for evacuees in Montawal town in

COTABATO CITY --- The information chief of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will assume on Monday as director of the regional government’s Office on Bangsamoro Youth Affairs (OBYA).Print journalist Amir Mawallil will relinquish the directorship of ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information to a deputy, Cris Gaerlan, before his assumption on Monday as director of OBYA.ARMM’s chief executive, Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman, appointed Mawallil as OBYA’s director more than a week ago.Mawallil first joined the executive department of ARMM in 2012 as head of an interim communications gro