50 villages in ARMM to get barangay government centers

COTABATO CITY—Fifty selected villages in the five-province Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will be recipients of a barangay government center worth P10 million.

At least two Maguindanao villages were singled out Sunday as lucky recipients of the project, which will be closely monitored by the Office of the Regional Governor and its public works and highways regional office during the construction period to ensure quality work.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, who led in the ground-breaking rites in Barangays Dulangan in Datu Odin Sinsuat and Pandag of Pandag town Sunday, said the selection process of the lucky recipients was undertaken by the Regional Development and Productivity Board based on local government-community initiatives to prosper and develop amid funding constraint.

“We are very much thankful to be chosen beneficiary of this project, and my people are very much grateful,” said Dulangan village chair Michael Ayao, whose parents voluntarily entered into a memorandum of agreement with the autonomous government donating a one-hectare land as site for the construction of a barangay hall, a health center and a children’s park.

“From now on, the land is a government property and the structures therein are for public use,” said Hataman in trying to correct misconception in Moro communities reclaiming from the government donated properties covered by the memorandum of agreement.

Pandag Mayor Zihan Mamalinta-Mangudadatu said her municipality has been equally blessed because its namesake village of Pandag would also have its own village structures within the one-hectare property donated by her husband, ARMM Assemblyman Khadafeh Mangudadatu.

Apart from the construction of barangay government centers, there will also be massive construction and repair of roads and bridges interconnecting villages within ARMM that has an allocation of P5 billion.

“Lanao Sur and the three island-provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi will have their share of the multi-billion-peso project that President Aquino wants completed before the Bangsamoro transition government sets in,” Hataman said.

“I suppose that by July next year, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority shall have already been created to start a dry-run of the ARMM engine that’s on its way out by 2016,” said Hataman, who expressed readiness to step down even before his mandated term ends.

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