Marginalized Lanao Sur families receive BRIDGE food rations

COTABATO CITY -- Hundreds of Meranao families affected by last year’s hostilities in Marawi City received food from a humanitarian program addressing poverty in impoverished barangays.Some of the recipient-families are residents of the hinterland Butig town in Lanao del Sur, ravaged by conflicts sparked by the hoisting there in 2014 of the black Islamic State flag by the Maute terror group.Workers of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao-Bangsamoro Regional Inclusive Development for Growth and Empowerment, most known as ARMM-BRIDGE, also distributed food to families in Lanao del Sur’s Picong, Balabagan, Madamba, Lumba-Bayabao, Balindong, Saguiaran, Mulondo, Butig, and Ditsaan-Ramain towns this week.David Ali, project manager of ARMM-BRIDGE, said Saturday part of their feeding initiative is to weigh children of beneficiary-families periodically to determine the impact of the activity.He said 900 Meranao families received food supplies from ARMM-BRIDGE this week.The ARMM-BRIDGE is focused on providing recipient villages in the autonomous region with four basic amenities - food, shelter, clean water and electricity.The ARMM-BRIDGE project management office in Cotabato City will expand in the coming weeks its dispersal of food rations to Meranao villagers in Piagapo, Lumbaca Unayan, Lumbayanague, Bubong Ramain, Kapai, Ganassi, Madalum, Masiu, Kapatagan, all in Lanao del Sur, and in Marawi City.The conflict-stricken Marawi City is the capital of Lanao del Sur.The feeding thrusts of ARMM-BRIDGE targets what program planners and researchers call the poorest of the poor in isolated barangays in the autonomous region.ARMM-BRIDGE workers have distributed food supplies to families in far-flung barangays in the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in separate operations early on.The program is also constructing hundreds of core shelters for poor villagers in the ARMM’s five provinces, whose recipients include now reforming former Abu Sayyaf militants who have surrendered and pledged allegiance to the Philippine flag.Ali said workers monitor the weight of children of families receiving food supplies as part of a continuing evaluation process as basis for policy and operational directions.The ARMM-BRIDGE, operating for more than two years now, is under the ministerial control of Gov. Mujiv Hataman, now in his second term as elected chief executive of the autonomous region.The Hataman administration has earmarked P2.9 billion for the humanitarian interventions of ARMM-BRIDGE in different towns.Norhaya Tomawis, 45, a resident of Barangay Baclayan Raya in Ditsaan Ramain, said Saturday her family is grateful to the ARMM-BRIDGE program for rationing food in remote barrios. It’s a big help for us, poor Meranaos, she said in Filipino.Nutrition experts and dieticians in the ARMM-BRIDGE have also been helping educate villagers on the importance of eating healthy foods, particularly by children, to ensure good health.Besides rice, fresh eggs, powdered milk, protein-rich beans, cooking oil, iodized salt, brown sugar and coffee, the ARMM-BRIDGE also provide villagers with hygiene kits containing shampoo, bath soap, toothbrush and toothpaste.