Telecoms project to bring 6,000 jobs to ARMM

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—Some 6,000 jobs will be available in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) when the P1.5-billion foreign-funded telecommunications project starts construction next month, according to a high ARRM official.

Ishak Mastura, chair of the ARMM’s Board of Investments, said Saturday the first step was the approval of the project being pushed by Filipino-owned EA Trilink Corp.

“The project, considered the single biggest investment ever to be set up in the ARMM, proves the viability of the region in engaging in a large-scale business venture such as this,” Mastura said.

He said EA Trilink seeks to establish some 2,000 electronic centers in at least 30 towns in the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.

“This project will benefit some 6,000 residents who will be absorbed as workers,” said Rosslaini Alonto-Sinarimbo, chair of the ARMM’s Economic Zone Authority.

Sinarimbo said EA Trilink will need hundreds of laborers to install a submarine cable that would connect the southern Philippines to Malaysia.

The link is part of the company’s expansion program aimed at making it a leading service provider in the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga).

ARMM Gov. Ansaruddin Adiong said the project is expected to enhance the region’s general business climate and improve its social landscape with the introduction of the latest digital communication technology even in remote communities.

“The project would bring ARMM to the forefront of the digital age, linking it more efficiently to the rest of the world,” he said.

EA Trilink has had similar ventures in Cambodia.

EA Trilink president Alfredo Panizales described the company’s effort to link ARMM areas via telecommunications as “bold and daring amid the unstable security situation.”

But he said the company was about the viability of the venture.

“The project implementation would be in two phases. The first would start in June while the last phase would commence in July next year,” Panizales said.

Meanwhile, southern Mindanao—composed of the Davao provinces and Compostela Valley—was the beneficiary of P1.53 billion in investments in the first quarter of the year, data from the Investment and Industry Development Division of the Department of Trade and Industry in the region showed.

The investments were poured mostly into the agriculture and property sectors, Teolulu Pasawa, this city’s trade officer, said. He added that among the investments was the purchase by a local investor of a former hotel for conversion into a medical facility. <strong><em>Charlie Señase and Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao</strong></em>