Another ARMM appointed official throws hat on political arena

COTABATO CITY -- Another key appointed regional executive resigned Monday to run for municipal mayor as a substitute candidate.Lawyer Mimbalawag Tomawis Mangutara, Jr., who had served for six years as finance director in the Office of the Regional Governor, or ORG, in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, will file his substitution documents to the poll body Wednesday, replacing his aunt, Raga Tomawis Beda, an aspirant for the mayoral post in Parang, Maguindanao.Mangutara, also an accountant, is an ethnic Iranun who resides in the municipality, unlike some incumbent municipal elected officials.Mangutara, most known as Barok, was appointed six years ago as finance director of ORG, touted as Little Malacañang of ARMM, by the region’s chief executive, Gov. Mujiv Hataman.His running mate is Amelia Abo, an incumbent municipal councilor of Parang, who ranked first in the 2016 results of the election of members for the town’s Sangguniang Bayan.The first appointed ARMM official to resign was Anwar Upam, now candidate for vice mayor of Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao.Upam was the manager of ARMM’s vaunted Health, Education, Livelihood and Protection Synergy (HELPS) program that built barangay halls and provided marginalized communities with humanitarian and socio-economic interventions needed to improve living conditions in beneficiary barangays.Upam’s running mate is Zahara Ampatuan, former mayor of Shariff Aguak.Residents in Shariff Aguak see the bid of Upam and Ampatuan for vice mayor and mayor, respectively, as an uphill struggle.The mayor of Shariff Aguak, Marop Ampatuan, and vice mayor, Kagui Akmad Ampatuan, are both being patronized politically by all of the 13 barangay captains in the municipality.Shariff Aguak was declared recently as drug free by an inter-agency oversight committee whose members include senior officials of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police.For the first time ever, Shariff Aguak got from the DILG central office the 2018 Seal of Good Local Governance in recognition of the efficiency of its municipal government in addressing governance issues and domestic security concerns.