BARMM News
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COTABATO CITY — Devices such as personal computers (PCs, or Desktops), laptops or notebooks, tablets, even smartphones have become no longer luxuries, but a necessity, especially in the time of coronavirus pandemic that started in December 2019.
Even before the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) smothered the world — more than 644.26 million confirmed cases, over 6.6 million dead people, and 623,117,872 recovered as of November 24, 2022, according to worldometers.info — technology devices or gadgets were already in demand among government agencies, business companies, students, and individuals.
The breakout of the pandemic even more called for the availability of these devices as at the peak of the global health crisis remote working, or work-at-home arrangements became the normal occasioned by lockdowns and quarantines.
Schools also went into the online education mode to prevent the transmission and the spread of the dreaded scourge that originated in Wuhan City in the province of Hubei in China.
Even now as schools are slowly opening up for face-to-face (F2F) classes, giving way to hybrid mode — F2F and remote or online learning — devices and gadgets are still in demand. Barangays also need devices to improve their functioning and delivery of services.
Thus, to roll with the times and responds and help schools in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (BARMM) headed by Interior Minister Naguib G. Sinarimbo, has provided much-needed devices to 12 barangays or villages of the Pigkawayan Cluster of the BARMM’s Special Geographic Area (SGA).
By virtue of the plebiscites in January and February 2019, 63 villages in North Cotabato chose to be under the Bangsamoro government’s jurisdiction, joining the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, and the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi.
They comprised the territory of the Bangsamoro region created through the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the CAB on March 27, 2014, after 17 years of protracted peace negotiations, characterized by fighting.
With the BARMM in place, local government units (LGUs) under the regional government and their communities have been receiving what Sinarimbo has often cited as the “dividends of peace”.
