ARMM residents to celebrate possibly `last' regional charter day

COTABATO CITY --- The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will commemorate on Monday ARMM’s 28thfounding anniversary, the last if Congress will approve its proposed replacement with a Bangsamoro entity.ARMM officials told this news outfit on Saturday that this year’s celebration of the region’s anniversary shall be simple in deference to the plight of victims of the five-month conflict in Marawi City.The region’s chief executive, Mujiv Hataman, now in his second term as elected ARMM regional governor, said on Saturday their modest founding anniversary feast for ARMM shall be capped off with his state of the region address. This could be the last SORA of an ARMM governor if the national legislature will give its nod to the proposed creation of a Bangsamoro government based on the Bangsamoro Basic Law. I am optimistic that will happen, Hataman said.The ARMM, which has a regional charter, the Republic Act 9054, has an executive department under the Office of the Regional Governor and a separate 24-member Regional Assembly, touted as little Congress of the autonomous region.Hataman, a staunch supporter of the on-going now 20-year diplomatic overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, reiterated on Saturday his readiness to facilitate a leadership transition from ARMM to an MILF-led Bangsamoro region if its creation would cut his term short.The proposed charter of the Bangsamoro region, an enabling measure for ARMM’s deactivation to pave the way for a new, more empowered regional government, was drafted by members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.The BTC, created last year by President Rodrigo Duterte in keeping with his promise to sustain the gains of the government-MILF peace talks, is comprised of representatives from the MILF and the national government.Organizers are expecting foreign and national dignitaries to witness the activities at the ARMM compound on Monday.Laisa Masuhud-Alamia, regional executive secretary of ARMM, said on Saturday that they have also invited members of the MILF’s central leadership core and BTC commissioners to grace the event.Alamia said they will inaugurate on Monday the newly-constructed office of ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team, most known in the region’s five provinces as HEART. The HEART has provided relief interventions to more than two million conflict and calamity-stricken people in the region and in areas in Region 10 and in the Visayas that were hit by typhoons after it was launched by the Hataman administration through an executive order issued on March 2013.The HEART’s new operation center is located at one side of the 32-hectare ARMM capitol southeast of Cotabato City. We in the ARMM government are certain leaders of the Bangsamoro entity, if created, will sustain this entity. We have capacitated it to the best we can. It is now a good model of a functional emergency reaction group, Hataman said.