Maranaos help typhoon-stricken Muslims in Albay

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — More than a thousand typhoon-stricken Muslim families in Albay province benefited from a relief mission in the past two days by Maranaos in the faraway Mindanao.

The relief mission of the provincial government of Lanao del Sur was facilitated with the help of local officials in the cities of Legazpi, Tobaco, Ligao and Polangui and in Daraga town, all in Albay province.

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. said Saturday they have a plan to expand their outreach activity to other areas in the Bicol Region that got devastated by Typhoon Rolly early this week.

“I am grateful to all Muslim community leaders and local officials in Albay province who helped our provincial government facilitate our initial relief missions there,” Adiong said.

Lanao del Sur province is in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao where thousands have also been displaced by flashfloods spawned by heavy rains spawned by Typhoon Rolly and a series of tropical depressions early on.

The BARMM government expanded this week its relief interventions to thousands of flood-stricken villagers in Barangays Simone, Sambuhay and Tamped in Kabacan town in North Cotabato.

The relief operations in Kabacan were facilitated by the Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or READI contingent, under the office of Bangsamoro Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo.

The READI assisted last October more than 10,000 families in towns along central Mindanao’s Liguasan Delta that swelled and overflowed due to heavy rains, inundating farming enclaves nearby, forcing villagers to relocate to higher grounds

Major Gen. Juvymax Uy of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division said Saturday he has dispatched 199 new soldiers to their units in central Mindanao for anti-coronavirus frontline and calamity response duties in Bangsamoro municipalities and in provinces under Administrative Region 12.

“The 6th ID supports all calamity and disaster response operations of the BARMM government and all local government units under Region 12 that are under our jurisdiction,” Uy said.

The 199 new Army privates, 11 of them women, belong to the “Matindig Class” trained by 6th ID’s training school in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

“They were also honed in relief and rescue missions. They shall help in calamity and disaster response activities of LGUs and, most importantly, enforce COVID-19 prevention measures,” Uy said.