Caretakers to prepare ARMM for elections—Robredo

MANILA, Philippines—Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo said the caretaker officials who will begin serving in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao  in September will not formally “take over” the region but will only prepare it for the 2013 election.

Robredo said he will fly to Davao Wednesday for the presentation of the “ARMM road map,” or the government’s plans in the months before the elections, as well as its timetable for the screening of the applicants and nominees to the caretaker positions.

“The transition team will not take over. It will just prepare for the takeover of new officials,” he said in a text message.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government is a member of the screening committee tasked by the President to recommend officers-in-charge who will run the ARMM in interim capacities when the terms of incumbent officials lapse on September 30.

Congress has approved a law resetting the ARMM elections, originally scheduled this month, to May 2013 to coincide with the national mid-term elections.

Officials said the screening body will take into consideration the candidates’ “education preparation, experience, performance, accomplishments, reputation for honesty, integrity, incorruptibility, irreproachable conduct, and fidelity to sound moral and ethical standards.”

The transition team, Robredo said, would be composed of the national government counterparts of the ARMM. As an autonomous unit, the region composed of Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Maguindanao and Lanao Del Sur provinces has its own cabinet officials, along with a governor and vice governor.

Robredo said the screening committee will recommend to Aquino the OIC governor “10 days before Oct. 1,” by which time the transition team shall have been installed. There were reportedly already some 40 nominees and applicants to the OIC governor post alone.

The names for ARMM OIC governor that have been floated include Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, who claimed the support of other ARMM local executives, and Anak Mindanao Party-list Rep. Mujiv Hataman.

Robredo earlier said the caretaker officials would not be allowed to run in the 2013 elections.