BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES

PIGCAWAYAN, North Cotabato  --- A representative from the United Nations and Bangsamoro officials launched Monday a community empowerment project for villagers badly affected by bloody conflicts in decades past.

The Bangsamoro Integrated Rehabilitation and Development (BIRD) program that would benefit Barangay Datu Benasing in Pigcawayan, North Cotabato and nearby farming enclaves is a multi-pronged socio-economic and psycho-social intervention for villagers, among them widows of secessionist Moro guerillas.

SULU — Several peace stakeholders gathered in a two-day forum in Jolo, Sulu to identify the different sectoral roles contributing to the success of peace building programs in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Ministry of Public Order and Safety (MPOS), in partnership Office of Member of Parliament Atty. Jose Lorena, conducted the forum dubbed “Multi-Stakeholders Peace Forum: Crafting the Foundations of a Lasting Peace” on August 13-14.

COTABATO CITY --- The local communities were elated with the appointment of lawyer Rohairah Ampuan Lao as first ever female regional prosecutor for five Moro provinces grouped as an autonomous region.

Never has the national government designated a woman as regional prosecutor for predominantly Muslim provinces in the south since the dawn of Moro autonomy in the 1970s.

The appointment of Lao, who hails from Lanao del Sur, as regional state prosecutor, or RSP, for the Bangsamoro region, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte, took effect late July.

COTABATO CITY – Fifty core shelter units intended for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in  Marawi City and indigent families in Barangay Bo-ot, in Wao Municipality, Lanao del Sur are now over 70% completion.
 
Abdullah Cusain, Project Manager of Kapayapaan sa Pamayanan (KAPYANAN), said this during a site inspection held Tuesday,  August 4.
 
KAPYANAN is one of the special programs of Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim which aims to improve the living condition of the poorest of the poor in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
 

COTABATO CITY --- Five former members of a local terror group and 54 others finished Monday a week-long training on water search and rescue maneuvers essential to emergency and disaster response operations.

Five of the 59 graduates of the water search and rescue (WASAR) training facilitated by the Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or READi, and the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, are erstwhile members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

COTABATO CITY --- Reporters and state auditors on Friday together tasted and found alright the desalinated seawater produced by new machines bound for island towns in Sulu.

The desalination machines, procured by the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao from the Water Equipment Technology Industries, Inc. (WetII), are for island municipalities where drinking water is so scarce. 

PICONG, Lanao del Sur — This seashore cum riverside town is groomed to become the cultural tourism capital of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). For one, common historical narratives traditionally bind here the tribal diversity of Mainland Mindanao and the Islands.

The municipality of Picong lies along the Lanao del Sur section of the Seaside Road connecting the province to Cotabato City in the south and northward to Lanao Norte and Pagadian City by the east-to-south coastal contour of Illana Bay.

CAMP SK PENDATUN, Maguindanao  - A total of 192 new graduates of police courses are now added to the forces in the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao (PRO-BARMM) after they took their oath of office Tuesday morning.

Brigadier General Eden T Ugale, regional director for Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autojnomous Region (PRO-BAR), officiated the oath taking ceremony for newly appointed police patrolmen and patrolwomen under the PRO BAR Calendar Year 2021-1st Cycle Recruitment Program at the Grandstand of Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun, Parang, Maguindanao.

COTABATO CITY – Lanao del Sur Governor Mamibtal “Bombit” Alonto-Adiong Jr. has urged Congress to pass the Marawi Compensation Bill long pending plenary deliberations, pointing out the “patience of my fellow Meranaws is wearing thin” after four years in waiting.

Gov. Adiong issued the call when interviewed at the sidelight of the regional summit of the Bangsamoro autonomous governance here on July 23.

TAWI-TAWI — As part of preemptive measures implemented by the government with the detection of the first Delta variant cases in the country, the Health Ministry of the Bangsamoro Government has allocated 30,000 doses of single-shot vaccine to this province.
 
This was after the roll-out of the first batch of US-made Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Covid-19 Vaccine from the national government.