DSWD, ARMM intensify anti-poverty program

In this photo released by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Governor Ansaruddin Adiong and Social Welfare Secretary Celia Yangco shake hands after signing their memorandum of agreement enhancing the implementation of the anti-poverty Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program in the autonomous region in sidelights of Monday’s first meeting among foreign donor-institutions and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao executives in Manila, as witnessing local officials look on enthusiastically.

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao signed a memorandum of agreement to ensure the intensified implementation of the government's anti-proverty measure called Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

DSWD Secretary Celia Yangco and acting ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Adiong signed the accord Monday in Manila and witnessed by officials and representatives of foreign donor-organizations and institutions and executives of the regional autonomous government.

In her brief speech, Yangco said the signing of the MOA was meant to replicate if not enhance the 4Ps implementation and ensure effective poverty-alleviation efforts especially in the conflict areas of ARMM.

The 4Ps, one of major anti-poverty government interventions, is a five-year program launched in 2008 through the DSWD. It is funded by international donors including American Development Fund, World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, The United Nations Children Fund and United Nations Population Fund.

It provides small cash grants to identified extremely poor families with the condition that the money will be spent for health and education of their children particularly from zero-to-fourteen years of age.

In ARMM where the country’s highest rate of malnutrition and school dropouts has been recorded, the program has gained momentum with the recent creation of the advisory committee to intensify efforts against poverty and improve the health, nutrition, education and economic condition of the local populace.

The DSWD leads the RAC with the Department of Health), Department of Education, Department of Interior and Local Government, the Regional Development Planning Office and the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information as members.

The RAC aims to effectively implement the 4Ps and translate national policies into region-specific operational guidelines, according to DSWD-ARMM acting Secretary Pombae Kader, who witnessed the signing rites alongside other regional cabinet members.

In his response speech, Adiong said the forging of the MOA would further boost the operations of the RAC in carrying out efforts prescribed under the 4Ps.

“With everything in place, we can no reason for gray areas in ARMM areas as far as the 4Ps implementation is concerned," Adiong stressed.

In an interview, Kader said the 4Ps targeted 92,000 families in the region, each earmarked with P1,400 monthly subsidy for five years for health services and education of three children. Each child will have P300 education or a total of P900 for the three children while the P500 will be used for the family’s basic health service.

As of August 2009 nation-wide, the program increased its target beneficiaries from 700,000 to one million households in 2008, entailing the government to increase its budget from P5-billion to P10 billion, a DSWD report said.

In the ARMM, as of August 2009, the program then covered 15 towns, serving some 30,000 households that received roughly P58 million, the report said, adding that 57 more towns and approximately 70,000 households are targeted in the region in five years. (Ali Macabalang)

Maguindanao wharf declared ARMM’s free port

Acting Regional Governor Ansaruddin Adiong (seated second from right) signs the proclamation declaring Polloc Port in Parang town in Maguindanao province a Free Port and Special Economic Zone at a convergence among officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and foreign donor-institutions in Manila on Monday, March 15, 2010 as Japan Embassy second Secretary Hirochika Namekawa (right), Counsellor Hussain Ibrahim Al-Badr of Qatar Embassy (middle), ARMM Speaker Reggie Sahali-Generale, Regional Cabinet Secretary Ila Manalocon (extreme left) and other regional executives shown standing look on enthusiastically. (Ali Macabalang)

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Bouncing back from what technocrats lamented as operational deprivation in power devolution, the Polloc Port here finally sees a ray of light in its two-decade quest to open investments and stimulate growth in the impoverished Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The prospects brightened after acting ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Adiong declared Monday the facility as a Free Port and the host village Polloc as a Special Economic Zone in the autonomous region.

Adiong signed the proclamation in formal ceremonies highlighting the equally unprecedented convergence of top ARMM officials and heads of over a dozen of foreign donor-institutions at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel in Madaluyong City Monday morning.

Lawyer Ishak Mastura, chairman of the ARMM Board of Investment, extolled the proclamation, saying: “We’ve waited long for this proclamation and we are grateful to Acting Regional Governor Adiong for doing it in pursuit of his vision to spur accelerated growth in the region.”

Mastura, then Trade and Industry regional secretary, conceived and pushed for the declaration of the regional economic zone and the free port during the first ARMM business congress in 2003.

Polloc Port Manager Harry Mohammad said the declaration marked a “historic beginning for the facility, not anymore as a ‘vision of the future’ after years of operation weathering political upheavals, natural and man-made calamities that characterized the Mindanao conflict.”

Mohammad said the Port was dubbed as “vision of the future” when it was constructed in the late 70s by the Korean Nam Kwang Construction, Ltd. with P150-million fund from the Asian Development Bank under the Marcos era.

The Polloc Port was classified then by the Philippine Ports Authority as the country’s “most modern facility outside Metro Manila equipped with main wharf, lighter docks, transit sheds and wide back-up areas fit for medium industries and processing plants, he said.

The ARMM government under the Aquino administration named the Polloc Port an international facility, pursuing an uphill campaign to make it a stimulus of regional economic growth.

The momentum, however, nose dived when the national government through the PPA devolved the operations of wharves in ARMM including Port of Polloc to the regional autonomous governance sans the manpower item-positions and the corresponding funds in 2002.

In recent problem-solving meetings, regional officials led by ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo had crafted measures to push for the immediate declaration of the facility as free port and enhance its operations from the grim effects of the lamentable devolution process, setting up Monday’s occasion.

According to Sinarimbo and Mohammad, Monday’s declaration posed a “hard work” for the new ARMM leadership to “buck down to work and realize a giant mission of achieving a vibrant maritime hub” in mainland Mindanao.

The ARMM officials appealed to maritime industry players and foreign donor-institutions to “help us attain this goal and push the ARMM towards a greater height.”

In response, officials of the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Asian Development Bank, Canadian International Dev’t Agency, Asia Foundation, International Labor Organization, USAID, UNFPA, UNIDO, ILO, UNDP and other foreign institutions assured continued assistance to ARMM.

ARMM is composed of the cities of Marawi and Lamitan and the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, which all have been lagging behind in various development dimensions.

National authorities have blamed the ARMM’s slow growth to peace and order problems, but regional economists argued that the region’s dismal share from the central government funding supports coupled with stringent national laws and policies is the “main impeding factor.”

In his campaign salvo, manager Mohammad said the free port would attract potential partners and investors for industrial estates, export processing, free trade, commercial centers, enterprises and tourism ventures, among others.

He said the port, being the major trading backdoor in the south, would initially operate actively in the commercial ventures of the Brunei , Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines’ East Asean Growth Area.

Tax holidays, capital equipment incentives, exemptions from real property and local taxes, and attractive build-operate and transfer scheme await investors in the village of Polloc, the just-declared special economic zone, which lies in the southern coast of the harbour 14-kilometer north of Cotabato City, he said. (Ali Macabalang)

ARMM Health Secretary Gets Prestigious Yorac Award

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / mar. 9, 2010) – The Manila Electric Railroad And Light Company and the University of the Philippines awarded Dr Kadil Sinolinding Jr, the Secretary of the Department of Health in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the prestigious Gawad Haydee Yorac Award for Outstanding Public Service because of his exemplary and venerable work on health service.

Sinolinding is the first Filipino Muslim to receive the esteemed award founded in honor of the late Haydee Yorac, who is considered to be among the country’s respectable and dedicated public servants, according to the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information.

Now on its 4th year, the Gawad Haydee Yorac Award is conferred annually by Meralco in cooperation with the University of the Philippines to outstanding individual in public service whose personal qualities and personal lives are worth emulating, it said.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, the ARMM Executive Secretary, lauded Sinolinding for his works and for garnering the award. He said the dedicated doctor is a pride to the people of the ARMM and boosts the reputation of the incumbent regional leadership.

The award body cited Sinolinding’s devotion of his more than 20 years of professional career to helping over a hundred thousand individuals in different parts of Mindanao especially those in remote and depressed communities. He helped organized medical outreach missions to several areas in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Saranggani, Maguindanao and Sulu that others dared not visit.

He has also been known for his Vision 20/20 Cataract Charities Team which made eye surgery and other ophthalmologic services available even to those who do not have the means since 1991.

Sinolinding had been nominated to receive the award by Dr Angelo Ladub, an anesthesiologist at the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center in Cotabato City. (Becky de Asis contributed to this report)

Victims of Basilan rebel attack, Maguindanao bombing get aid

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 5, 2010) – Acting Governor Ansaruddin Adiong of the Muslim autonomous region released some P260,000 in aid for the victims of rebel attacks in Basilan province and a recent bombing in Maguindanao, his spokesman said Friday.

Ali Macabalang said Adiong also condemned the atrocities against civilians in the two provinces which are part of the autonomous region.

“Upon learning about what he has lamented as barbaric attacks on civilians, acting ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Alonto-Adiong ordered the prompt release of P200,000 for the victims in Maluso, Basilan massacre and P60,000 for the casualties in the bombing apart from medical assistance provided by his subordinate officials,” Macabalang said.

Police and military said a dozen people were killed by rebels in an attack February 27 on a small village in Basilan’s Maluso town. Ten others were wounded in the raid that left several houses burned.

Macabalang said Health Secretary Kadil Sinolinding, who was in Maluso during the attack, took the cudgel to bring some of the survivors to hospital in Zamboanga City. He said Sinolinding witnessed the gruesome state of victims burned inside the houses.

Two people were also killed and four other wounded in a bombing in Maguindanao’s Parang town last week.

“For the victims in the Parang bombing that killed two people and injured four others, Governor Adiong dispatched Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo to hand the cash assistance to the victims’ families and bring the survivors to the regional hospital in Cotabato City,” Macabalang said.

He said Adiong also ordered Chief Superintendent Bienvenido Latag, the regional police cghief, to investigate the massacre and bombing incidents and “see to it that the culprits are brought to the bars of justice.”

“We cannot let the barbaric attacks pass unpunished,” Adiong said. (Becky de Asis and Mark Navales contributed to this report.)

Japan enhances development interventions in Philippine Muslim region

Naguib Sinarimbo, ARMM executive secretary (second from left), and Michimasa Numata, JICA chief advisor on human capacity-building (3rd from left), signed the minutes of their 5th joint committee meeting in Davao City Thursday, as ARMM director for administrative services Lydia Udaundo-Mastura (left) and another JICA official look on. (Photo by Ali Macabalang)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Top officials of the Japan International Cooperation Agency have assured to enhance development initiatives in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, pursuing a barrage of foreign aids and interventions to help bring peace and growth in Southern Philippines.

Michimasa Numata and lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, joined respectively by JICA experts and ARMM officials, held here Thursday their 5th joint coordinating committee meeting aimed at jump-starting a three-year human capacity development project for the bureaucracy of the autonomous region.

The JICA human capacity building project has two main parts: The conduct of trainings by Japan-trained ARMM trainers for personnel involved in carrying out infrastructure development projects; and the drafting of implementing rules and regulations of the regional administrative code for the autonomous region.

ARMM director for public works department’s operation Guialoson Mamogkat and administrative management director Lydia Udaundo-Mastura were named point-persons for JICA-sponsored technical trainings, and administrative code drafting workshops, respectively.

On Friday, another group of ARMM bureaucrats also led by Sinarimbo held a separate meeting in Makati City with a JICA team involved in restructuring guidelines for environmental and social interventions that would be opened in the Philippines including the autonomous region this year.

Director Satoshi Sugimoto and Assistant Director Masahiko Egami of the JICA program on environmental and social concerns conducted a half-day lecture on the guidelines for relevant project proposals, for which they asked various participants including ARMM officials to be transparent and accountable.

Sugimoto said they have four categories for projects that may proposed under the environmental and social interventions, including constructions of facilities for energy-generation, roads, railways, airports/seaports, waste management, and the like.

Sinarimbo, incumbent ARMM regional secretary, expressed gratitude to the Japanese government through the JICA for its keenness in infusing different development initiatives in the areas of the regional autonomy, which has been lagging other administrative zones in the country.

“We are very much thankful for the enhanced development interventions of JICA in support of other foreign countries’ assistance in ARMM," he said.

Sinarimbo and Numata officially signed the minutes of the 5th JCC meeting here Thursday, signalling the JICA to jump-start the final phases of activities involved in human capacity development initiatives in the ARMM bureaucracy.

Other JICA expert officials present in the meeting here were JICA deputy head to Philippines Masafuni Nagaishi, Project formulation adviser Takashi Komori, Kasuhiro Okamoto, business support expert Ryujiro Sasao, training management expert Ryoji Higurashi, and adviser for ARMM Shinichi Kimura. (Ali Macabalang)

GAA "punitive" provision imperils ARMM operations

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 23, 2010) - The new officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are calling for an urgent veto of what they lamented as "grossly punitive" provision in this year's General Appropriations Act governing fund releases to the ARMM governance.

Unless saved by a Presidential veto this week, the ARMM operations are in peril of being paralyzed, officials led by acting ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Adiong disclosed in vehemence.

"I humbly implore for an audience anytime this week to bring out personally our grave concern before said flaw becomes irreversible," Adiong stressed in his letter to the President Gloria Arroyo on Monday - five days before the mandate of GAA provisions take effect on February 27.

Adiong was referring to Special Provision No. 2 on the ARMM budget on Page 881 of GAA 2010, which states that "no subsequent release shall be made unless previous funds released to the ARMM were audited by a special audit team based in Manila and designated for the purpose."

The same provision slates that "any disbursement that not been liquidated, audited and/or disallowed by the special audit team shall be deducted from subsequent releases for the ARMM from this year's GAA."

The 24-member Regional Legislative Assembly of the ARMM and the five provincial governments under the Muslim autonomous region - Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur - have prepared separate manifestations protesting the GAA provision, which they described as an affront to the wisdom of installing the Adiong regime purportedly to reform the regional governance.

The Arroyo administration has detained and indicted ARMM Governor Zaldy Ampatuan in connection with the November 23, 2009 massacre of 57 people, including 31 journalists, in Maguindanao province. It also ordered a special audit of the fund disbursements of the suspended leadership on suspicion of alleged graft.

"At a time when ARMM needs to rebuild its image from accusations of graft, inefficiency and violence, the budget restriction will severely affect our efforts to implement strategic regional infrastructures and basic social services that, aside from improving the lot of our people, would prove that ARMM remains as a relevant, functional and beneficial politico-administrative unit," a draft of an RLA resolution said.

The draft resolution said the RLA members are collectively opposed to such provision and earnestly appealing to President Arroyo to veto it.

This year's GAA earmarks P9.2-billion budget for ARMM. The amount covers some 70 percent share for personnel services, 25 percent maintenance and operating expense funds and P850-million capital outlay.

"The ARMM's 2010 budget constitutes less than 1% of the national budget, but the new regional leadership has vowed to utilize it to the optimum benefit of its constituents under the principles on transparent, consultative and moral governance," ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo said.

The provincial governments of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi are equally alarmed of the stringent budget provision because they stand to share P150-million each for vital infra projects while the regional government would share only P100-million for similar projects, records said.

Unless timely vetoed, the budgetary "law" would do a "collective punishment" against all the workforces and constituents of the regional governance, said Sinarimbo, who is a noted lawyer.

He said the budget provision is unwarranted because there is no certainty in the length of period the audit on the Ampatuan administration's expenditures would be completed.

"While all well-meaning people of ARMM support the comprehensive audit on past fund releases and the prosecution of officials culpable of misdemeanors, we should not be held hostage to its proceedings and outcome," he said.

Analyst Raymundo Pelaez berated as illogical the interpolation of the stiff provision into the GAA because while it "appeared serious to sanction people suspected of wrong doings, it squeezes the necks of new leaders the national government installed to institute reforms."

"In ARMM, more often than not, investigations or comprehensive fund audits are synonymous to infinity. Therefore, holding the new ARMM regime solely dependent on the result of the audit of fund disbursements they have nothing to do with, is a virtual act of sabotage," Pelaez said. (Ali Macabalang)

Australia to extend education program in ARMM

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo (left) swears into office lawyer Dr Hamid Barra as new secretary of the Department of Education in the autonomous region in simple rites in Cotabato City on Monday, February 1, 2010 as Shariah Judge Aboali Cali, lawyer Engineer Udtog Tago and a ranking official of the DepEd-ARMM look on. ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Adiong appointed Barra last week before the new secretary was elected by the National Ulama Council of the Philippines to steer various vital education programs in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces and the cities of Marawi and Lamitan which form part of the ARMM. (Photo by Ali Macabalang)

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 2, 2010) – Australia is likely to extend its support and finance a critical education program in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Filipino officials said on Tuesday.

Officials said the Australian Agency for International Development pledged to extend up to ten years its Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao which would focus only to the depressed communities in the impoverished region which comprises the province of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.

The Australian project is expected to reach some US$33-million, according to ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo, who said that lawyer Hamid Barra, who was earlier appointed by acting ARMM Governor Ansaruddin Adiong as regional secretary of the Department of Education, will be playing a main role in the extended BEAM projects.

Sinarimbo said the extended BEAM program seeks to intensify the AusAID intervention in addressing the high dropouts, elementary undergraduates, classrooms shortage, and inappropriate teachers’ instructional skills in the Muslim autonomous region.

He said the proposed education program extension covers only the elementary level. For the high school education which also needs improvements, Sinarimbo said they will have to conduct a study and present proposals to other aid donors.

The BEAM Project ended in Muslim autonomous region ended last year after completing an eight-year mission of helping public schools in reach and maintains higher standards of basic education.

“It is pleasing to note that much have been achieved in the ARMM areas covered by the BEAM project with a 24 percent improvement in elementary education and 15 percent in the secondary level,” said Ian D’Arcy Walsh, BEAM project director, during a farewell dinner in November hosted by the Department of Education in Cotabato City.

The Philippine News Agency said Australia’s basic education program covers 18 provinces in central and southern Philippines and is focused on improving access to quality education, providing better teaching and learning in Mindanao and the Visayas, and supporting national basic education reforms.

It said as a lead grant donor in basic education, Canberra has been assisting the Philippines in meeting a lagging Millennium Development Goal indicator which is to achieve universal primary education by 2015.

BEAM has been instrumental in providing tested innovations to the Department of Education which largely influenced the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda in standards setting, educational planning, learning outcomes management, financial management, educational administration and management, and monitoring and evaluation.

The government media said with BEAM's support, over 5,000 schools are now implementing school-based management, and about 53,000 teachers have received training to strengthen their teaching skills and improve learning outcomes for children.

To improve the quality of Islamic instruction, including mainstream public schools, Australia also helped train about 2,000 Muslim teachers and supported 30 Islamic schools to enable them to become accredited operator of private schools implementing the Standard Madrasah curriculum. (Mark Navales and Ali Macabalang and the Philippine News Agency contributed to this report)