Advisory council supports new BARMM police leadership
GOVERNANCE/POLITICS • 09:45 AM Tue Jun 25, 2019
2
By:
John M. Unson
The first RAC meeting with Brig. Gen. Marni Marcos was held Monday. (John Unson)
MAGUINDANAO --- The civilian-led Bangsamoro regional police advisory council has pledged support to the security efforts of newcomer Police Brig. Gen. Marni Marcos in a dialogue Monday.
Marcos, who graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1988, is the new director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PRO-BARMM).
PRO-BARMM covers the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.
The Regional Advisory Council (RAC) of PRO-BARMM is chaired by nurse-lawyer Laisa Masuhud Alamia, the minority floor leader in the BARMM regional parliament.
Alamia opened Monday’s meeting of the council in Camp SK Pendatun in Parang town in Maguindanao with an assurance of support to the newly-designated regional police director.
Marcos had candidly said he needs help from RAC owing to his being from the far north, not so familiar with the cultural, religious and political intricacies in the Bangsamoro region.
Marcos replaced last month a classmate in the PMA, Brig. Gen. Graciano Mijares, who is now assigned at the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Camp Crame in Quezon City.
Members of the council, among them former Cotabato City councilor Marino Ridao, Sr., representatives from the media, the business sector and the Islamic community, have agreed to invite lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, who is BARMM’s local government minister, to join the advisory bloc.
Marcos said he is open to the idea of enlisting Sinarimbo, a peace advocate, to the RAC.
Sinarimbo, who has ministerial jurisdiction over local government units in BARMM, was actively involved in the crafting of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, or Republic Act 11054.
The measure, ratified through a plebiscite on January 21, 2019, paved the way for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more empowered Bangsamoro regional government.
The RAC supports extensively the peace efforts of the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, whose chairman, Hadji Ahod Ebrahim, more known as “Hadji Murad,” is now chief minister of BARMM.
The RAC helps PRO-BARMM formulate diplomatic and humanitarian intervention strategies in support of maintaining law and order in the region, which has peculiar socio-economic, cultural and political settings and home to mixed Muslim, Christian and Lumad groups.