QUAKE DAMAGED. The estimated PHP750-million Eva’s Hotel in Kidapawan City before and after it was damaged by the series of quakes that hit North Cotabato in October to November this year. The damaged hotel is set for demolition during the first quarter of 2020 as it continues to pose danger to the public. (Photo courtesy of NDBC Kidapawan)
COTABATO CITY – Central Mindanao has stood by the facets of life in 2019, capped with both pleasant and distressing events.
Amid all these fusion of events though, Central Mindanao continues to hurdle the trials gearing towards progress.
The old Central Mindanao region was abolished geographically and was changed to Soccsksargen (South Cotabato, [North] Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and the cities of General Santos, Tacurong, Kidapawan, and Cotabato) following the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that included the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur in its set-up during the November 1989 ARMM plebiscite.
Political aspect
On January 21 and February 6 this year, constituents of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) trooped to various voting centers to ratify the formation of the expanded Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The BARMM replaced the old ARMM set-up, with the newly expanded political entity comprising the provinces of Maguindanao, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Lanao del Sur, and Basilan; the cities of Marawi, Lamitan, and Cotabato; and the 63 villages in six towns of North Cotabato.
“An estimated two million voters or an 85 percent turnout of electorates participated in the plebiscite that created BARMM,” Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, BARMM’s minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government told reporters in a huddle with reporters on Dec. 24.
He said that BARMM, borne out of more than two decades of the Moro struggle for self-determination in Mindanao is currently led mostly by former leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front led by interim BARMM Chief Minister Ahod “Murad” Balawag Ebrahim.
The BARMM, currently on its transition phase, is set to elect its regular set of elected officials in 2022.
Meanwhile, during the May 13, 2019 midterm polls here, where voters elected once more local government officials and members of both houses of Congress who would serve for the next three years, the people of North Cotabato saw the winning of Governor-elect Nancy Catamco, the province’s first-ever Manobo leader.
Following her assumption of the governor’s seat, Catamco has pushed for programs that would benefit both the Indigenous Peoples and other constituents of the province.
Peace and order
Since the imposition of martial law in Mindanao following the May 23-Oct 23, 2017 siege staged in Marawi City by the Maute-led terror group, peace and order in the island-region greatly improved, paving the way for Mindanao leaders to be divided in opinion on its proposed lifting by the end of this year.
For one, Cotabato City Mayor Frances Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi said the city council has passed Ordinance 4529 or the Discipline Hours in May this year, implementing a 10:30 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. curfew in the city residents - with violators ordered to render community service once caught.
A corresponding fine and imprisonment are also imposed on repetitive violators.
“We will continue to impose our curfew hour ordinance even if martial law is lifted because it has done good for the city,” Sayadi said.
In June this year, the city police office has reported a 55 -percent decrease in crimes occurring in the city, both in the index and non-index crime categories.
In 2018, the Police Regional Office -12 has also regarded the city as the safest city in the region after registering a 47 percent drop in crime volume.
Although joining the BARMM this year, crime volume in Cotabato City continues to drop due to the efforts exerted by the local security sector.
On Dec. 23 though, a series of explosions rocked the city and believed to have been perpetrated by peace saboteurs. At least 14 people – nine soldiers and five civilians – were injured following the first explosion that took place just outside the city’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral.
Police and partner security agencies are still investigating the case.
Regional police and military authorities said they would leave everything to President Rodrigo R. Duterte the decision to lift or extend martial law in Mindanao.
In Maguindanao, the Dec. 19, 2019 conviction of members of the Ampatuan clan implicated in the infamous Nov. 23, 2009 “Maguindanao massacre” is also seen to improve the peace and order situation in the province.
At least 25 massacre plotters that included former Datu Unsay town Mayor Andal “Datu Unsay” Ampatuan Jr. and his brother, former ARMM Governor Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, were sentenced by Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 to Reclusion Perpetua for 57 counts of murder, among them 32 journalists, in the worst election-related incident in the country’s political history.
“This just proves that the rule of law had prevailed,” Sinarimbo said of the case decision.
Some 80 other suspects linked to the decade-old murder case remain at-large and are being hunted by authorities following an order by the court for their immediate arrest.
“Justice has been served,” Maguindanao 2nd district Representative Esmael “Toto,” Mangudadatu told newsmen here in radio interviews following the verdict.
Mangudadatu, then vice mayor of Buluan town, challenged Ampatuan Jr. for the governorship of the province in connection with the May 13, 2010 polls when the tragic incident took place.
Ampatuan, Jr., backed by a 200-man private army that included several policemen, herded a convoy of vehicles that carried the journalists, together with Bai Genalyn, the wife of Mangudadatu, and several other Mangudadatu relatives while passing by Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman, Ampatuan, Maguindanao, and brought to the interior hilly part of the village where they were brutally executed.
Subsequently, Mangudadatu was elected governor in 2010 and was twice reelected.
He won by a wide margin against political rivals during the May 13, 2019 race for the congressional seat in the second district of the province.
Business aspect
Being the new center of BARMM, Cotabato City’s construction of a modern airport and seaport with a combined amount of some PHP200-billion is underway in Barangays Tamontaka and Kalanganan respectively, through a Private-Public Partnership scheme by the local government with the China Engineering and Construction (Shenzhen) Company Incorporated.
The PHP176-billion airport alone would need some 15,000 skilled workers, from carpenters, masons, and laborers, Sayadi said.
Also set to begin construction in 2020 is the China-Cotabato Friendship Technical School.
Sayadi added that the three projects are the result of steadfast relations between the people of Cotabato City and China.
At the BARMM, the prospect of becoming a major investment destination in the country remained bright as the Regional Board of Investments (RBOI) recorded PHP4.1 billion worth of financing in 2019 which is 80 percent higher compared to last year’s PHP2.5 billion.
The big investors included the Lamitan Agri-Business Corporation with investments worth PHP1.8 billion in Cavendish banana plantations in Basilan; the PHP1.4—B JMI Sand and Gravel Truck Services Corporation in Maguindanao; the PHP515-million Maguindanao Corn Development (MCD) DSA-1 Corp.; the PHP-306-M Wao Development Corporation in Lanao del Sur; and the PHP100-M abaca processing plant Hong Kong Feng Sheng Heritage Philippines Inc., also in Lanao del Sur.
“A total of 2,724 jobs are expected to be created from these projects,” Lawyer Ishak Mastura, RBOI-BARMM chairman. said during a forum held here earlier this month.
Rising from calamities
The province of North Cotabato has remained steadfast in rising from the effects of the episodes of earthquakes that hit the province since October 16, 2019.
Three of the major temblors were above magnitude 6 and centered in Tulunan, North Cotabato.
Also affected by the series of the quakes were the provinces of Davao del Sur, Sarangani, South Cotabato, Bukidnon, Sultan Kudarat, and Maguindanao, among others.
In North Cotabato alone, at least 52,195 families or an equivalent of 260, 975 were affected by the quakes, according to records of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
The NDRRMC also listed more than 20 persons dead and more than 400 injured in the succession of quakes from the Davao Region, Soccsksargen and the BARMM.
Damaged infrastructures were also placed at 37,340, the NDRRMC said.
Mayor Joseph Evangelista of Kidapawan City in North Cotabato has repeatedly said in media in interviews following the quakes that they will continue to rise and face the challenges through the help of the national government, kind-hearted individuals and other regions across the country that did not hesitate on extending help through relief goods and donated cash in their time of need.
“This is to point out that the spirit of ‘bayanihan’ still lives in the hearts and minds of Filipinos,” Evangelista said as the city and the rest of the North Cotabato continue to brace for more small to moderate aftershocks recorded at over 500 so far. (PNA)
