More telco cell sites in 63 BARMM barangays in Region 12 sought

COTABATO CITY — Officials are calling on telecommunications companies to put up more transmission facilities in the 63 Bangsamoro barangays in Cotabato province to hasten the connectivity of residents to government service facets and trading centers where they sell their farm products.

Three members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament, the lawyers Paisalin Tago and Suharto Ambolodto and the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding Jr. separately told reporters on Wednesday that they are contemplating to co-author a resolution requesting state and private telecommunication providers to put up cell sites in the 63 barangays.

“It is a pro-peace, pro-development concern. We don’t have any problem pooling our voices together to request telecommunication firms to put up more of such facilities in these 63 barangays,” Ambolodto said.

The 63 barangays in different towns in Cotabato province in Administrative Region 12 became part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao after residents opted to have their communities covered by the BARMM government via a plebiscite in January 2019.

“We need more cell sites to maximize our health services and emergency response operations in these 63 barangays that we are trying to improve by enticing capitalists from outside to come in and put up viable agricultural projects,” Sinolinding said.

Sinolinding, an eye surgeon trained in India who has a team providing free treatment for poor eye patients in the 63 scattered Moro enclaves, said that telecommunications can also boost the joint efforts of the local government units, the police and the military in maintaining the fragile peace now in the scattered barangays, grouped as the Special Geographic Area or SGA.

The Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front both have camps in the SGA that the national government recognizes as “peace zones,” where various government agencies have socio-economic projects benefiting residents.

The chairman of the MNLF’s central committee, BARMM Labor Minister Muslimin Sema, said their followers in the SGA area can readily help the Police Regional Office-12 and the units of the 6th Infantry Division secure the cell sites in any of the 63 Bangsamoro barangays where they have camps.

Sema said that the Sept. 2, 1996 final peace agreement between the government and the MNLF obliges both sides to cooperate in maintaining law and order in areas where there are members of the front.

Tago, who is concurrent transportation and communications minister of BARMM, said that he will task the officials of their planning and research division to plan out how they can separately entice private telecommunication giants in the country to put up more cell sites in the 63 Bangsamoro barangays in North Cotabato province.