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COTABATO CITY (SDN) — It’s 2024, the Year of the Wood Dragon in the Chinese time keeping through its Zodiac signs.
On the other hand, in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) it’s business as usual, notably with the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) headed by Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal.
Hitting the sea sailing, so to speak, the MBHTE through its Property and Supply Section sailed to the far away island province of Tawi-Tawi to deliver 6,600 armchairs specifically designed by the education ministry.
Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Member of Parliament (MP) Atty. Suharto “Datu Teng” Ambolodto led the trip to the island province.
The MBHTE Property and Supply Section led by Section Chief Ms. Santhalia “Bai Mot” Abdullah, the supplier officer, hopped on a boat on January 3 in Polloc Port, Maguindanao del Norte, bound for Bongao, Tawi-Tawi.
MBHTE’s mission was to deliver and distribute supplies and equipment that included armchairs, textbooks, Teachers’ Kits, Learners’ Kits, and LCP materials.
The distribution of the above on some of the province’s island municipalities is expected to foster educational support and development in the Bangsamoro region.
For the armchairs, its destination schools are in the municipalities of Languyan — 2,600; Mapun — 2,960; South Ubian — 1,040, for a total of 6,600.
Established in 2018 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the Bangsamoro region 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.
Under the leadership and guidance of Iqbal, who is also a Member of Parliament (MP) of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), which runs the Bangsamoro government and led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the MBHTE has been putting in place reform initiatives to raise the quality of education in the BARMM.
Iqbal’s reforms cover the construction of new school buildings to add more classrooms, rehabilitation of schools where needed, hiring of thousands of teaching and non-teaching personnel, distribution of IT equipment and tools, school supplies, Teachers’ Kits, Learners’ Kits, and other school- and classroom-related materials.
MBHTE operates on the maxim that “No Bangsamoro learner shall be left behind”. — EKU via MBHTE Media (✓)