COTABATO CITY -- All is set for the official transfer of 63 North Cotabato villages to the supervision of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, with ceremonies to be held at Shariff Kabunsuan Complex, the provisional seat of the BARMM here, on Wednesday (Nov. 20).
“Officials of North Cotabato will be coming over to be part of the momentous event,” lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, chief of the BARMM Ministry of the Interior and Local Government, said during the weekly Kapihan sa BARMM on Tuesday.
Heading the group of North Cotabato officials would be Vice Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, the acting provincial governor, in place of Governor Nancy Catamco who is yet to complete her 90-day suspension on Nov. 21, 2019.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has earlier imposed a 90-day preventive suspension on Catamco, which began on Aug. 21, 2019, upon orders of the Sandiganbayan in connection with a graft and malversation case.
Sinarimbo said BARMM Chief Minister Ahod “Murad” Ebrahim, meanwhile, would lead Bangsamoro officials in a two-part ceremony – the accepting of the 63 North Cotabato villages in the morning and the reporting to the BARMM parliament of the turnover in the afternoon.
Of the 63 villages, 13 are from the town of Midsayap; Carmen , seven; Pigcawayan, 12; Kabacan, seven; Pikit, 22; and Aleosan, two. These North Cotabato villages opted to join the expanded BARMM set-up through a plebiscite held in February this year.
Sinarimbo said despite their transfer to BARMM, the 63 villages will continue to receive their Internal Revenue Allocation directly from the Department of Budget and Management.
“We will be putting up ministries in the BARMM’s North Cotabato set-up later so the delivery of basic government services would go unhampered,” he added, amid plans to create a special geographic cluster pending the creation of a new province for the area.
Sinarimbo said an invitation has been sent to DILG-Manila but did not say if DILG Secretary Eduardo Año would attend the event. (PNA)
Transfer of 63 NoCot villages to BARMM set
By Noel Punzalan
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