GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 29 May)—A committee has completed the review of credentials of those aspiring to lead the newly formed eight towns in the Special Geographic Areas (SGA) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), an official said.
The eight new towns were carved out of 64 villages in Cotabato province that opted to be part of the Bangsamoro autonomous region in a plebiscite in 2019.
The creation of the eight towns were ratified in another plebiscite on April 13, 2024. The new towns include Pahamuddin, Kadayangan, Nabalawag, Old Kaabakan, Kapalawan, Malidegao, Tugunan and Ligawasan.
300 applicants
BARMM spokesperson and cabinet secretary Mohd Asnin Pendatun, in a press briefing on Monday, said the Ad Hoc Screening and Review Committee already completed evaluating the more than 300 applicants to various local positions of the eight towns.
The committee was formed by BARMM Chief Minister Ahod Balawag Ebrahim himself. Ebrahim is expected to appoint officials to their positions within the next 45 days, in accordance with law. May 15 was the cutoff in accepting applications.
There were 40 aspiring mayors, 39 who wanted to be vice mayors, and 288 municipal councilor applicants, Pendatun said.
Resolution for Congress
As this developed, Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) member Mohammad Kelie Antao said they will ask Congress, through a resolution, to create a province for the eight newly created towns.
“It is important that the eight towns must have their own province and a congressional district,” Antao said during a press briefing. Antao was optimistic the creation of the new province will come before the elections in 2025.
Earlier on, Lawyer Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, the BARMM interior minister, told MindaNews the eight new towns in the region will remain under the supervision of the Special Geographic Area Development Authority (SGADA).
Dumama-Alba made the remarks when asked as to which neighboring BARMM province will the new towns be made a part of, considering the 2025 elections is forthcoming.
SGADA will supervise the eight towns “until a new province is created, based on the Bangsamoro Local Governance Code,” the official said in a text message.
SGADA, which closely works with the Ministry of the Interior and Local Governments (MILG), was specifically created to look after the concerns of the 63 SGA barangays in six towns in Cotabato province that opted in 2019 to be part of BARMM.
Dumama-Alba said “the creation of a new province shall be via a congressional act, so we need to lobby for this to happen.”
2025 elections pre-requisite
Antao noted that with the election period only five months away, the creation of a new province may not come in time for the 2025 elections. But, Commission on Elections chair George Erwin Garcia said the SGA plebiscite on April 13 was a requisite to the first BARMM elections in 2025.
The 63 SGA villages came mostly from Pikit town, Cotabato province’s most populated town, that ceded 22 or about half of its barangays to BARMM. This was followed by Midsayap town with 13; Pigcawayan, 12; Carmen and Kabacan, 7 each; and Aleosan town with 2.
The 63 villages were then referred to as SGA-BARMM, an area considered as stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which leaders now run the BARMM after forging a peace deal with the Philippine government in 2014.
Ligawasan province
The SGA is also an area referred to by the MILF as Ligawasan Province in their transactions.
The villages are located in the Ligawasan Marsh, a vast wetland that straddles the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur in the BARMM and Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat in the Soccsksargen region.
With the eight new towns, BARMM now has 125 municipalities. (Rommel G. Rebollido / MindaNews)