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COTABATO CITY — A year after their appointment and assumption to office as members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), seven newly appointed Members of Parliament (MPs) presented to their Bangsamoro constituents, stakeholders, and community leaders their accomplishments and performance for the past 12 months.
Dubbed as “Year One: Performance and Accomplishments of Newly Appointed BTA Members”, the Public Forum was held on August 21, 2023, from 8 a.m. to 12 noon at the Alnor Convention Hall here in the city.
According to Majority Floor Leader Atty. Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, “reporting the Parliament’s accomplishment and performance to the public is aligned with BARMM’s mission to promote moral governance.”
BARMM is the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao created by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2024 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), which in turned was signed by the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after 17 years of protracted peace negotiations.
MP Atty. Mary Ann M. Arnado emphasized that “public office is a public trust, and it is the duty of public officials to always be transparent and accountable in our actions. Reporting is a good governance practice, and we hope we will be able to regularly communicate and inform the people on the progress of our work especially during this most critical juncture in the extended transition period.”
The purpose of the event focused on apprising the public and the solons’ constituents of the programs, and key milestones that new members of the BTA Parliament were able to accomplish during the one-year period that they have been in office.
The Presentors for the Public Forum included MPs Mosber Alauddin, Matarul Estino, Baileng S. Mantawil, Tawakal Midtimbang, Suharto Esmael, Arnado and Dumama-Alba with the participation of Deputy Speaker Lanang Ali, Jr. who delivered the Welcome Remarks.
The Bangsamoro region, established in 2018 by the BOL is made up of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the Special Geographic Area’s (SGA) 63 barangays or villages that voted “Yes” in a plebiscite in February 2019 to be under the BARMM jurisdiction.
According to the Philippine Atlas BARMM has 4,404,288 people. It has 116 municipalities: Basilan, 11 municipalities; Lanao del Sur, 39; undivided Maguindanao, 36; Sulu, 19; and Tawi-Tawi, 11. Its component cities are Cotabato (the regional center and capital) in Maguindanao; Lamitan in Basilan; and Marawi in Lanao del Sur. (✓)