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COTABATO CITY (SDN) — The government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) has been providing vehicles to its ministries and agencies to ease officials’ delivery of services, as well as visits to far-flung areas of the Bangsamoro Region.
On October 9, it was the time for the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) under the leadership of Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal to provide for its Directorate General for Higher Education (DGHE).
MBHTE is one of the primary ministries of the BARMM government, which is mandated to manage and take care of the autonomous region’s education sector with the objective of raising the quality of education.
The MBHTE through Iqbal, who wears many hats in the Bangsamoro/Mindanao peace process, turned over the vehicle to the DGHE on Wednesday consisting of a unit of a van and a separate five units going to the Ministry-Supervised Higher Education Institutions (MSHEIs) to enhance transportation of personnel and students.
During the ceremony held at the MBHTE Main Office, REALC Building, Bangsamoro Government Center (BGC) here in the city, Iqbal handed over the symbolic keys to the representatives of the recipient schools, which include the Upi Agricultural School (UAS), Unda Memorial National Agricultural School (UMNAS), Lanao Agricultural College (LAC), Balabagan Trade School (BTS), and Bangsamoro Kulliyah for Islamic Studies (BKIS, formerly REMACADEMY).
Each vehicle, which can accommodate a maximum of 15 passengers, were specifically acquired to improve accessibility and transportation, ensuring immediate respond to the different needs of the institutions.
The Bangsamoro region, established in 2018 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), is made up of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, 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. With the recent plebiscite at SGA, the BARMM now has eight new municipalities as residents voted “Yes”.
According to the Philippine Atlas BARMM has 4,404,288 people. It has 116 municipalities (plus eight newly established under the SGA: 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. (✓)