BARMM health officials hand out ambulances, lauded lawmakers

THE Ministry of Health in the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao had turned over 11 ambulances to various health facilities across the region in compliance with its vision of attending to the health needs of every Bangsamoro.

During the turnover ceremony, BARMM Health Minister Dr. Rizaldy Piang said all these ambulances and other supplemental projects are part of the members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) who poured in P157-million worth of different health projects that will benefit the Bangsamoro constituents.

Last week, six ambulances were already turned over to the province of Basilan.

All funded from the 2021 Transitional Development Impact Fund (TDIF) of previous and present members of the parliament (MP), these projects include land ambulances, mobile clinic, incentives for Barangay Health Workers (BHW), essential medicines, Covid-19 testing kits, and barangay health stations, among others.

"This the sign that our government is responsive to the needs of our community," Piang said after he and

BARMM’s 224 cops complete BISOC, ready for deployment

CAMP SK PENDATUN, Maguindanao Norte — More than 220 police officers are ready for deployment to various police units across the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), a police official said Thursday.

Brig. Gen. John Guyguyon, BARMM police regional director, said the 224 police personnel who on Thursday graduated from a 60-day training on Basic Internal Security Operations Course (BISOC) “Saniblahi” Class of 2022 and 2023, are on their way to new assignment in various police units in BARMM.

Speaking during the graduation ceremonies held at the PRO-BARMM regional headquarters in Camp SK Pendatun, Parang, Maguindanao, Brig. Gen. Guyguyon challenged all the graduates to “always do what is right.”

“Do what is legal, what is right and maintain police discipline as you perform your mandated duties,” he told the graduates who will be deployed in various units in BARMM BARMM is comprised of Maguindanao del Sur,

Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and TawiTawi as well as in BARMM Special Geographic Area composed of 63 villages in North Cotabato that are now part of BARMM.

Their 60-day rigid training was designed to educate them on the serious complexities of internal security operations.

“The new graduates are now ready for deployment to different areas of the region and will be involved in anti-insurgency, public safety, and special law enforcement operations,” Brig. Gen. Guyguyon said. Edwin O. Fernandez

2-deck Husky Bus now serving Cotabato City-Wao...from P1

“This will help improve our tourism programs in town,” Mayor Balican said.

“The journey was smooth, safe and convenient,” Tago later told reporters after bus Arnold Agulto, safely brought the modern bus back to its base in Cotabato City after a 6-hour back and forth travel.

The Husky Bus, operated by Husky Bus MultiPurpose Cooperative, is currently servicing the Cotabato City-Tacurong City-Koronadal City-Gen. Santos City and vice versa route.

No transport strike in Cotabato City, Region 12

The transport industry in Region 12 and in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao rejected nationwide strike and opted to continue normal transport operations.

George Mangansakan, president of AwangCotabato Transport Operators and Drivers’ Association (ACTODA), said his group of about 3,000 members support the modernization program of the government and rejected calls for them to join the strike.

“The protest is too long, our drivers will have no income for four days, how can they survive?” he said in a radio interview.

“We continue serving the riding public, we are not joining the strikes,” Mangansakan stressed. “It will not give any good benefits for us.”

Director Renato Padua of Regional Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) in the Soccsksargen region said the region’s transport group did not participate in the strike and prioritize services to the riding public.

Saying the transport groups issued public statement about non-participation in the strike, Padua said transport services across the region remained normal.

Soccsksargen region covers the provinces of North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and the cities of Kidapawan, Koronadal, Tacurong and Gen. Santos City.

The Department of Education (DepEd) in Region 12 also issued an advisory that no class suspension in public schools in the Soccsksargen region.

In Cotabato City, Mayor Bruce Matabalao declared suspension of face-to-face classes from March 6 to 10 in the face of transport mass protest. He later lifted the suspension on Wednesday for the resumption of face-to-face classes on Thursday and yesterday. Edwin O. Fernandez

BARMM Senior Minister Abduraof Macacua signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the distribution of ambulances.

BARMM Deputy Health Minister Dr. Zul Qarneyn Abas also lauded the regional lawmakers who dedicated their projects to improve the health sector.

"This is the response of the parliament members to the health needs of the Bangsamoro constituents," Abas said. Edwin O. Fernandez

DOS cop chief wants speed limit ordinance

THE police want a municipal speed limit ordinance for a highway straddling through Datu Odin Sinsuat following an accident Sunday that left six people dead and seriously injured 13 others.

Major Regie Albellera, municipal police chief of nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat (DOS) in Maguindanao del Norte, told reporters Tuesday they will ask local officials to impose, via an ordinance by the Sangguniang Bayan, a 60 kilometer-per-hour speed limit for all vehicles plying through the entire stretch of the CotabatoIsulan Highway in the municipality.

“We are hoping the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal council can act on that,” Albellera said.

Six persons died while 13 others were hurt in an accident involving three vehicles, a pick-up truck, a passenger van and a tricycle, early Sunday in Barangay Gubat in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Three of the six fatalities, driver Unasan Kaul, and his passengers, Norhaimen Baladek and Manaut Guialudin, were together in a Toyota HiAce passenger van that collided head-on with a black Toyota Hilux pickup truck in a stretch of the Cotabato-Isulan Highway in Barangay Gubat in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

All three of them died on the spot.

Albellera said the injured driver of the pick-up truck, Bomber Gani, and two more van passengers, an old woman named Kaidu Manalasal and Mamakong Salimbao, died one after another in a hospital later.

Barangay officials and responding probers from the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station said Gani’s pick-up truck, bound for South Cotabato province from Cotabato City, first hit a tricycle and, subsequently, rammed the approaching passenger van as it veered to the left side of the highway.

John Felix Unson

4 ISIS-inspired terrorists yield in SK

FOUR more members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters surrendered Wednesday and promised to help convince former companions to return to the fold of law.

The BIFF operates in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and is blamed, along with allies Al-Khobar and Dawlah Islamiya, for all deadly bombings in central Mindanao since 2014.

Major Gen. Alex Rillera, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said Thursday the four BIFF members turned in firearms and anti-tank rockets before they renounced their membership with the group during a surrender rite in Barangay Kapaya in Bagumbayan, Sultan Kudarat.

The four men, whose names were temporarily withheld for their safety, yielded through the backchannel intercession of officials of the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion and the 603rd Infantry Brigade.

All four men confessed to their roles in collecting money and food for their group and bombing of public transportations whose owners had refused to shell out “protection money” on a monthly basis.

Units of 6th ID in central Mindanao’s adjoining Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Sarangani provinces and local executives had worked out the surrender in batches of 215 BIFF and Dawlah Islamiya members in the past 14 months. John

Felix Unson

BARMM now has own election law...from P1

It was approved on second and final reading on the same day, despite the three-day rule, because it was certified as urgent by BARMM Chief Minister Ebrahim.

The electoral code provides introductory provisions, the Bangsamoro electoral office, regional political parties in the Bangsamoro, elective positions in the Parliament, elections upon dissolution of the Parliament, the voters, election administration, election offenses, legal fees, transitory provisions, and final provisions.

Ebrahim said that the MPs made a commitment to establish a government deserving of the name “Bangsamoro” when they took the oath of moral governance at the beginning of the transition period.

“In fact, the Bangsamoro electoral code’s adoption today is a major step towards realizing such a promise,” Ebrahim said.

“It is an opportune time for us to set a new stage for our future leaders to lead our people by exemplifying honesty, equality, and empowering the true voice of democracy,” Speaker Balindong said.

Filed in September 2022, the draft code was immediately referred BTA Rules Committee, chaired by Floor Leader Atty. Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba.

Her committee methodically deliberated on the provisions of the draft before it was presented to the plenary.

BARMM has already approved four codes that were contained in the BOL. These are the administrative, civil service, education codes and the electoral code.

The MILF-led law making body is yet to pass three more codes, the local governance code, revenue and indigenous peoples’ rights.

Ebrahim assured that the Bangsamoro government should also ensure that elections at all levels of government in the Bangsamoro are free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible, reflecting the genuine will of the electorate.

MP Alba said BTA is expecting moves to question its legality before the Supreme

Court. “We are ready to defend the code,” she told news conference Thursday.

Some of the salient features of the electoral code include:

• Establishment of Bangsamoro Electoral Office by and under and under direct control and supervision of the COMELEC. It will supervise all national, regional, and local elections, plebiscites, initiatives, referenda, and recall proceedings within the Bangsamoro region to ensure compliance with election laws and other pertinent rules of the COMELEC.

Regional political parties must have at least 10,000 members who are residents and registered voters from various provinces with provincial, city and municipal chapters.

• Parliament is composed of 80 members with 50 percent party representatives, 40 percent district representatives, and 10 percent sectoral representatives. Party representatives are registered regional political parties with at least 4% of the total valid votes cast in the party system election.

• District representatives should be elected by registered voters in the parliamentary districts using a direct plurality vote.

• Sectoral representatives should make up at least 10 percent of the MPs, with two seats reserved for non-Moro indigenous peoples and settler communities. Women, youth, traditional leaders, and the Ulama will each be assigned one seat.

• The first regular election for the Bangsamoro Government will be simultaneously held with the 2025 national and elections, as stipulated in the BOL. BTA Media

MPs laud passage of electoral code...from P1

governance objectives” of the still four-year-old Bangsamoro government.

“This is something so important to us because this, in essence, is related to efforts of putting political and diplomatic closure to the decades old Moro quest for selfgovernance,” Sinolinding, who had served as regional secretary of the now defunct ARMM, told reporters Thursday morning.

Ebrahim, who, as regional chief minister, is at the helm of the 80-member Bangsamoro parliament, said he is grateful to all sectors and the Comelec for helping them craft the regional electoral code.

Bangsamoro Labor Minister Muslimin Sema, who is chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, said he and other

Announcement

Ang Feroce Pawnshop & Money Changer-Main at Branches

I, II, S.K. Pendatun, Sinsuat Avenue, sa Cotabato City, Branch III sa Midsayap, Kidapawan Branch, Isulan Branch at San Pedro Branch sa Davao City ay magkakaroon ng “Subasta Sale” sa darating na Marso 31, 2023 sa ganap na alas 8:00 ng umaga hanggang alas 4:30 ng hapon para sa mga hindi natubos na sangla sa buwan ng Oktubre 2022.

Upang hindi maremate ang inyong mga alahas magbigay ng interest bago dumating ang araw ng subasta.

“Sa Feroce Pawnshop na tayo kumpleto na ang serbisyo”

MC: Mar. 11, 2023

Republic of the Philippines

COTABATO FOUNDATION COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Barangay Doroluman, Arakan, Cotabato

Contact No. +639685331496/+639670025670

Email Address: admin@cfcst.edu.ph

Website: www.cfcst.edu.ph

The Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology (CFCST) announces the opening of the search for two (2) Private Sector Representatives to the CFCST Board of Trustees.

Qualifications:

1. Be a Filipino citizen and of legal age;

2. From an industry, business, or profession preferably related to the CFCST's charter or mandate;

3. Have at least five (5) years of employment, business, or practice of profession in the private sector;

4. Be domiciled in or a resident for at least two (2) years of North Cotabato;

5. Not connected with CFCST or other government agencies and instrumentalities in any manner, for one (1) year immediately prior to his or her nomination to the PSR position;

6. Not currently employed or appointed to any position in the government (local, national, including government-owned and controlled corporations), be it full time or part time, at the time of nomination for the PSR position;

7. Not related to any member of the present Board or their duly-authorized representatives, within fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity; and,

8. Not have been a candidate who lost in any national or local election, except for barangay elections, within one (1) year after such election.

Interested and qualified applicants may inquire from Mr. NHASSER M. PASANDALAN, CFCST Board Secretary V, thru CP No. 09550465005 or email him at cfcstboardsec@gmail.com with respect to the documentary requirements and other related matters.

Deadline of submission of application, including the attachments, shall be on March 17, 2023 at 5PM.