Creation of new 8 BARMM towns in Cotabato province set

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — All is set for the April 13 plebiscite for the creation of eight Bangsamoro municipalities to cover 63 barangays in Cotabato province as part of efforts to transform component farming and fishery sites as new destinations for investors.

Residents of the 63 barangays in different towns in Cotabato province in Region 12 voted in favor of the inclusion of their barangays into the core territory of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao during a plebiscite in early 2019.

Chairman George Erwin Garcia of the Commission on Elections, Army Major Gen. Alex Rillera, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Region 12 police director Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg separately confirmed to reporters on Wednesday the schedule of the plebiscite, a requisite for the grouping of the 63 barangays, also known as BARMM's Special Geographic Area, or SGA, into eight new towns.

The three officials and representatives from the provincial government of Cotabato and the BARMM regional government held on Tuesday an initial dialogue on preparations for the plebiscite at a function facility in the headquarters of the Police Regional Office-12 in Barangay Tambler in General Santos City.

“The 6th ID and its counterparts in the Philippine National Police shall together help the Comelec administer the plebiscite in the barangays that shall be covered by these eight proposed municipalities,” Rillera told reporters here on Wednesday morning.

The creation of Pahamudin, Kadayangan, Nabalawag, Old Kaabakan, Kapalawan, Malidegao, Tugunan and Ligawasan municipalities was proposed by the 80-seat BARMM parliament via a measure its members approved last year, after a series of extensive consultations with stakeholder communities.

In a statement Wednesday, the provincial government of Cotabato under Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, who is presiding chairperson of the multi-sector, inter-agency Regional Development Council 12, said it shall help ensure a safe conduct of the April 13 plebiscite in the SGA.

A number of investors from cities in Region 12 and outside had toured some of the 63 SGA barangays last year to study agricultural and fishery projects they can venture in with the help of the Bangsamoro Business Council, the Ministry of Trade, Investment and Tourism-BARMM and the Bangsamoro Board of Investments, or BBOI.

Macaraeg said the director of the Cotabato provincial police, Col. Gilbert B. Tuzon, and the mayors of the towns in Cotabato from where the 63 SGA barangays were carved from, shall cooperate in helping the Comelec conduct the April 13 plebiscite.

The chairman of the BBOI, Mohammad Omar Pasigan, who has been trying to connect the 63 barangays to potential foreign capitalists, said on Wednesday that establishing eight local government units in the SGA will boost its economic landscape and investment climate.

Some of the 63 Bangsamoro barangays are in the northern part of the 220,000-hectare Ligawasan Delta that experts from the central office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and European mining engineers and geologists have proven to have vast deposits of fossil fuels, or natural gas, even touted as the largest in Asia.