@edd1819ย @bluestar0910ย SDN — Science and Digital News
BARMM News:
By EDD K. USMAN
Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-fHU
(SDN) — Water-starved municipalities of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) are getting wet, so to speak.
Getting wet literally, because the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (BARMM-MILG) has made it a point to provide potable water to certain municipalities of the province of Sulu, which is one of the components of the Bangsamoro region.
The others being Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the 63 villages (barangays) in North Cotabato province dubbed Special Geographic Area (SGA) that opted to fall under the parliamentary BARMM’s jurisdiction during a plebiscite.
Under the leadership of Interior Minister Atty. Naguib G. Sinarimbo, also BARMM spokesman, the MILG has taken it as a responsibility to fulfill the Tausug’s wishes for a clean drinking water.
Sinarimbo has noted that some municipalities of Sulu in Region IX (Western Mindanao) have been starved of potable water for ages and ages. (One would wonder why seemingly all previous administrations of the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM) — in all their 20 years of governance — failed to address the Tausug people’s clamor for water.)
Water they need, water they get. That’s with BARMM headed by Chief Minister Al-Hajj Murad Ebrahim, the chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Related story: ‘Waterworld’: Bangsamoro Gov’t Initiates Php430-M Water Projects for Sulu, Lanao Sur
On December 29, 2021, Sinarimbo announced the installation of “another set of desalination machines successfully installed in the island municipality of Pangutaran in the province of Sulu.”
“Before, this municipality do not have potable water and is dependent on rainwater, or its residents need to travel for hours crossing the Sulu Sea to fetch potable water in the main island of Sulu. The residents now have a source of potable water. For this big island municipality, our Ministry installed two mid-size desalination machines,” the MILG chief pointed out.
Sinarimbo expressed elation at the Pangutaran residents’ “bayanihan” (collaborative) spirit as they moved the desalination machines to their proper places on the island. He welcomed seeing the happy faces of the residents after drinking the potable water from the desalination machines.
The MILG will install desalination machines to a third Sulu municipality as it earlier said Hadji Panglima Tahil, Pandami, and Pangutaran were the first three to get the facilities that draw water from the sea and turned them into potable water. Sinarimbo said the MILF had earmarked Php23.9 million for the three towns.
Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, which are also island provinces but lack just water-starved (what an irony) will get their desalination machines from the United States-based Water Equipment Technologies (WET) Company.
In Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, MILG has earmarked some Php400 million for the rehabilitation and improvement of the city’s water system that covers five areas in the Islamic City, Mindanao State University (MSU) Area Zone 1; MSU Area Zone 2; MSU Area Zone 3; Bless Area; and 12IB to Pugaan Area.
Not exactly a water world, but the MILG keeps on delivering on its various mandates. (โ)