ARMM gov't launches 'HELPS' in Marawi

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Officials launched Thursday in Marawi City a special “government services convergence program” for local Maranaw communities, a humanitarian initiative complementing Malacañang’s peace overture with Moro sectors in Mindanao.

The project, a brainchild of the executive department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao dubbed as the ARMM Health, Education, Livelihood, Peace interventions and other services (HELPS), was introduced last week in a stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Al-Barka, Basilan.

“This project is virtually an actual contextualization of bringing government right into the heart of recipient-Moro communities,” said the ARMM’s local government secretary, lawyer Makmod Mending, Jr.

The ARMM-HELPS project for Marawi was launched jointly by the region’s acting governor, Mujiv Hataman, Mending, and Maranaw local officials.

Hataman, Basilan Gov. Jum Akbar, and the most ranking leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the island province, Dan Laksaw Asnawi, jointly led last week’s ceremonial start of the project in Barangay Cambug in Al-Barka town.

The kick off rite for the Marawi City ARMM-HELPS project was capped with a medical outreach activity by the regional health department, whose workers gave poor Maranaw patients with free pneumococcal and tetanus toxoid vaccinations, and eye examinations.

ARMM officials also distributed to Maranaw beneficiaries Philippine Health Insurance Corp. membership cards and initiated a supplemental feeding activity for Maranaw pre-school children.

Mending told reporters regional officials also turned over to residents of Barangay Cabingin in Marawi City a community warehouse and solar dryer built for them by the government.

Residents of Marawi City that participated in the ARMM HELPS project were also given seedlings of orchard trees and assorted vegetable seeds.

Hataman said he is grateful to the support of local government units in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur for supporting the implementation of the ARMM HELPS project.

“This project is meant to show to our constituents that the government is indeed sincere in serving them, regardless of whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims,” Hataman said.

Hataman, Mending, Hadja Bainon Karon and physician Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., who are the ARMM’s regional and social welfare and health secretaries, respectively, also led Friday the launching of the ARMM HELPS projects in other far-flung towns in Lanao del.