DBM’s nod for 637 teaching posts in MSU campuses lauded

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament are pleased with the approval by the Department of Budget and Management of additional 673 teaching positions in nine campuses of the Mindanao State University in southern cities and provinces.

DBM Secretary Mina Pangandaman reportedly approved the creation of such positions as recommended by the MSU system, covering nine campuses across Mindanao and whose center of operations is its main campus in Marawi City.

“That is a very positive development,” a Maranao member of the Bangsamoro parliament, the lawyer Paisalin Tago, said on Wednesday.

The MSU main campus in Marawi City and its other campuses in Mindanao are not under the education ministry of the Bangsamoro region, but regional officials were elated, just the same, with the report about Pangandaman’s nod for the budget requirements for the monthly pay and fringe benefits of the 637 new faculty members for the nine MSU campuses.

Officials of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said on Wednesday that they welcome the move as good for efforts to provide residents of BARMM quality education.

Parliament Member Kadil M. Sinolinding, Jr., a physician-ophthalmologist who took his pre-medicine course at the MSU in Marawi City, said he is thankful to the DBM for approving the creation of the 637 new teaching positions in the nine campuses of the state-run university.

“That augurs well with our desire to have more teachers in MSU campuses,” Sinolinding said.

Sinolinding, who leads the health committee of the BARMM parliament, said he will encourage the chairperson of their education committee, Eddie Alih, to appreciate, via a written statement, the DBM’s prompt approval of the creation of the additional MSU teaching positions.