Infra support boosts businesses in 63 special Moro barangays

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines — Merchants are certain of a boom in commerce and trade in the 63 Bangsamoro barangays in Cotabato province after ongoing infrastructure projects for the local communities are completely implemented.

The 63 predominantly Moro barangays in different towns in Cotabato province in Administrative Region 12 had been grouped as the Special Geographic Area, or SGA, of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, after residents voted for the inclusion of their villages in the core territory of BARMM via a plebiscite in 2019.

Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza said Saturday she is glad with the BARMM government’s construction of new barangay halls in the SGA and the improvement of road networks connecting its villages to the town centers under her jurisdiction where Moro farmers can sell their farm products.

“The connectivity, in terms of commerce and trade, among residents of other barangays that are under Cotabato province and those in the SGA is taking off nicely,” Mendoza told reporters Saturday.

The Ministry of the Interior and Local Government-BARMM has constructed 13 barangays halls in the SGA and is presently building 49 more to establish a strong government icon in beneficiary-areas, where there are members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front that have separate peace compacts with Malacañang, aiming to address poverty and underdevelopment in Moro areas via socio-economic and humanitarian interventions.

Mansur Kalim, a Maguindanaon rice trader in Kabacan town in Cotabato, said he is planning to expand his business in SGA barangays in Carmen in the same province once the MILG-BARMM has completed its barangay hall projects in the municipality.

“I have relatives residing in those areas who can help me oversee the rice and corn grains trading business I am planning to put up there,” Kalim said.

The physician Kadil Sinolinding Jr., a resident of Kabacan and a member of BARMM’s 80-seat parliament, said Saturday he is grateful to the MILG-BARMM and the Cotabato provincial government for cooperating to harness the investment potentials of the 63 Bangsamoro barangays in the province.

“The Mendoza administration has not stopped helping the Moro communities in the 63 Bangsamoro barangays become progressive despite the fact that these have all been detached from the Cotabato provincial government since 2019,” Sinolinding, himself a Moro, said.

Sinolinding, an eye specialist who had served as regional health secretary of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, is one of the proponents of separate enabling measures for the creation of eight municipalities out of the 63 SGA barangays, now pending in the BARMM interim parliament.

Brig. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade that has units in the 63 SGA barangays, said there have been noticeable improvements in businesses in areas where the MILG-BARMM had constructed barangay halls.

“Barangay officials are now using these barangay halls as venues for settling family feuds and in planning solutions to community concerns,” Gumiran said.

Local executives in Cotabato’s Carmen, Kabacan and Midsayap towns said Saturday there has been a considerable increase in applications for business permits by Moro traders in the SGA barangays in recent months as a result of the essential infrastructure support from MILG-BARMM.

“Our municipal government and the office of our provincial governor are together helping them still even if their barangays are no longer under Cotabato province,” Midsayap Mayor Rolly Sacdalan said.

The MILG-BARMM had constructed more than 50 other barangay halls, police stations and municipal halls in other areas in the six provinces and three cities in the autonomous region.