Maguindanao to have new acting governor soon

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Maguindanao will soon have a new acting governor pending the assumption of a duly elected governor after the May local elections, regional officials said.

Sources at the executive branch of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have confirmed that a selection committee is now wrapping up the screening of prospective applicants for acting governor, presently held on a concurrent capacity by acting vice governor Nariman Ambolodto.

More than half of Maguindanao’s 36 mayors earlier asked the ARMM leadership to speed up the selection due to the impropriety of allowing Ambolodto to function as acting vice governor while discharging the duties of acting governor.

Ali Macabalang, director of the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information, said Ambolodto was designated last Dec. 15 by Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno only as acting vice governor, but was forced to assume the duties of acting governor on concurrent capacity after the appointee for the top post, engineer Nazzer Sinarimbo, declined to take over the provincial leadership.

The ARMM’s acting governor, Ansarudin Adiong, earlier said he has given the selection committee “full autonomy” in choosing an acting governor.

Sinarimbo, the supposed acting governor of Maguindanao, is now the manager of the ARMM’s Social Fund Project, in charge of socio-economic projects bankrolled by the World Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Staffers of the ARMM’s Department of the Interior and Local Government said there are more than a dozen applicants for acting governor of Maguindanao.

Ambolodto, if not chosen, will likely remain as acting vice governor, according to sources. 

Meanwhile, the selection process for a full slate of officers-in-charge (OICs) is heating up with the supposed intervention of Church-backed sectors allegedly pushing the presidential bid of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.

The problem became more complicated after conservative Muslim leaders joined the tug-of-war against the perceived “Church interference” in the choice of Maguindanao transitional leaders, according to administration officials.

Sources close to House Deputy Speaker for Mindanao Simeon Datumanong denied rumors that he is pushing for the appointment of Rep. Guimid Matalam as acting governor in what locals described as a “stimulus” to the indignation of Church-backed partisans.

The rumors spread after Matalam withdrew his candidacy against the re-election bid of Datumanong in Maguindanao’s second district supposedly in exchange for the latter’s endorsement of his appointment as OIC governor. – With Rose Tamayo-Tesoro