BARMM News:
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By EDD K. USMAN | @edd1819 | @bluestar0910 | SDN — Science and Digital News
(SDN) — It’s obvious that since the birth of the autonomous governments in Muslim Mindanao (and that was many, many years back counting the years of the martial law era), it is only now in the time of the Bangsamoro government that education is getting a big boost.
The reason, obviously, for the more focused attention on the education of the local Muslims is the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Interim Chief Minister Ahod Balawag “Al-Hajj Murad” Ebrahim is leading the BARMM since thhe creation of the new political entity (NPE).
Covered by the BARMM are Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as 63 villages designated as Special Geographic Area (SGA) in North Cotabato province (which itself is not part of the region).
Created as a parliamentary government and still under the wings of the Philippine government, the BARMM is the product of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) through its implementation by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). The CAB came out of more than 17 years of peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Responsible for the education of the youth in the BARMM is the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) headed by Minister Mohagher Iqbal, appropriately the MILF’s chairman for information, as well as chief negotiator, and chairman of the MILF Peace Implementing Panel, among the many hats he wears in the Mindanao peace process.
Since Iqbal assumed the mantle of the education ministry, the MBHTE has been funding and building school buildings for the BARMM to add very much needed classrooms and facilities.
The latest of which are two buildings and Water Source Development (WSD) facilities all worth Php11.9-million which the MBHTE sourced from various funding origins, such as from the 2018 Basic Educational Facilities Fund (BEFF), and from some ministers of Parliament’s 2020 Transitional Development Impact Fund (TDIF).
From the MP’s TDIF the projects constructed included water source development, and water sanitation and hygiene with submersible pump and hand washing facilities were constructed. They were turned over to schools in the Division of Maguindanao II.
Iqbal said the projects turned over are:
- a 4-classroom, 1-storey school building worth Php4,330,471.83 to the 🏫Sarilikha National High School (SNHS) in Barangay Semba, Datu Odin Sinsuat(2018 BEFF);
- a 3-classroom, 1-storey school building costing Php3,318,472.37 to 🏫Kusiong Elementary School (KES), Barangay Kusiong, Datu Odin Sinsuat (2018 BEFF)
- Water Source Development for Bugawas Elementary School (BES) amounting to Php1,065,883.27 (2021 TDIF of MP Narciso C. Yu Ekey);
- Water Sanitation and Hygiene with Submersible Pump and Hand Washing Facility worth Php1,065,883.27 for 🏫Broce Central Elementary School (BCES), Barangay Tamontaka, Datu Odin Sinsuat (2021 TDIF) of MP Dr. Susana S. Anayatin;
- Water Sanitation and Hygiene with Submersible Pump and Hand Washing Facility at Php1,065,883.27 for 🏫Tenorio Elementary School (TES) in Barangay Awang, Datu Odin Sinsuat (2021 TDIF of MP Dr. Susana S. Anayatin;
- Water Sanitation and Hygiene with Submersible Pump and Hand Washing Facility, Php1,065,883.27, for 🏫Bubong Elementary School (BES), Sitio Bubong, Kalanganan 2, Cotabato City (source: 2021 TDIF of MP Datu Mussolini Sinsuat Lidasan).
The Bangsamoro education chief had called for the MBHTE to be “unwavering and innovative” in responding to the ‘new normal’ brought about by the pandemic.”
Iqbal emphasized the “business-as-usual” mode in addressing the education needs of the Bangsamoro is a thing of the past already more so in projects implementation. (✓)