More hospitals in ARMM needed after infra boom

DAVAO CITY --- A key participant to an on-going local government summit here want more state funds for the construction of hospitals after major infrastructures sprouted in southern Muslim towns in the past four years.Lamitan City Mayor Rose Furigay on Thursday said mayors in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao should cooperate in pushing for the allocation by Malacanang and the ARMM government of funds needed in the setting up of more permanent health facilities in far-flung areas. We already have concrete roads everywhere, bridges, schools, seaports and water supply systems even in the remotest towns in the autonomous region. What we need now are more hospitals and other health facilities, said Furigay, now in her second term as mayor of Lamitan City, the capital of Basilan.Lamitan City’s local government unit received recently the 2016 Seal of Good Local Governance from the office of Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno in recognition of its feats in public administration and domestic peace and security initiatives.Physician Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., regional secretary of the Department of Health-ARMM, said there is indeed a need to construct more hospitals and other permanent health facets now that people in most villages in the autonomous region are interconnected by arterial networks. That will happen soon. That is being looked into by the present ARMM administration, Sinolinding said in response to Furigay's recommendation.Furigay said many mayors in the autonomous region are not as persistent in ventilating to ARMM Gov Mujiv Hataman and the DOH-ARMM the needs for hospitals in their towns.The infrastructure projects accomplished by the ARMM government in the past four years were jointly implemented by Hataman and his public works secretary, Engineer Don Loong.Furigay, Sinolinding and Hataman are among hundreds of local government executives and members of the ARMM cabinet participating in the two-day local government summit in Davao City, which started Wednesday morning.The summit, the third since 2014, is a joint activity of all LGUs in the autonomous region and the executive department of ARMM.The ARMM’s five provincial governors took turns in briefing participants to the summit on the peace and security and socio-economic issues besetting their respective provinces.President Rodrigo Duterte is the keynote speaker in the culmination program of the summit on Thursday afternoon.