ARMM info chief to assume Monday as youth affairs overseer

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 group that initiated an extensive information campaign on the policy directions of the Hataman administration and its bid to introduce reforms in what was then a graft-ridden regional bureaucracy.So mismanaged was the ARMM government before Hataman got to its helm as appointed caretaker in late 2011.Hataman was first elected as regional governor in May 2013. He was reelected to a second term during the May 2016 regional elections.The OBYA is one of several special support offices helping the ARMM governor manage the autonomous region, home to Muslims belonging to different tribes, Christians and Lumad people.The OBYA is focused on fostering solidarity among the culturally-diverse youth sectors in ARMM's five provinces, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.The outfit, operating under the ministerial control of the Office of the Regional Governor (ORG), also known as Little Malacañang of the autonomous region, is also engaged in various programs meant to encourage support to peaceful means of resolving the nagging Moro issue.The ORG also exercises control over more than 20 line agencies Malacañang devolved to the regional government based on ARMM's charter, the Republic Act 9054. Mawallil, a Tausug, said he will help Hataman propagate cordiality among ARMM’s Moro, Christian and indigenous non-Muslim Lumad youth communities.Amir Mawallil, outgoing ARMM information, will assume Monday ARMM’s Office on Bangsamoro Youth Affairs executive director. (John Unson)