Duterte’s pointman for Mindanao dev’t
Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2019 17:03:28 +0000
IN the second half of the six-year Duterte administration, a great deal of focus will be on the development of the President’s home region of Mindanao. Much hope is pinned on the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). But the overall planning for all of Mindanao will be in the hands of the Mindanao Development Authority (MDA).
Last Friday, the President announced he was reassigning Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, moving him from the Department of Agriculture (DA) to the Mindanao Development Authority, which will carry out the administration’s big plans for the President’s home region.
The BARMM, now led by interim Chief Minister Murad Ebrahim, is now carrying on the difficult task of organizing a truly autonomous regional government in a part of the country that has long suffered from violence and political diversity. Only recently, Ebrahim said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) whose 12,000 fighters he once led against government troops now faces the problem of armed groups like the Abu Sayyaf which have remained active in the region.
As the BARMM focuses on the political consolidation of the region, along with ending the age-old violence of groups like the Abu Sayyaf, the national government plans to concentrate on the region’s economic development through the Mindanao Development Authority.
“I need a pointman, with the likes of Secretary Piñol, for the MDA which will lead the development effort in Mindanao,” the President said. Piñol said the Department of Agriculture has been drawing up a ten-year agriculture master plan for the BARMM which is expected to be finalized in August. The BARMM, he said, possesses vast resources like Lake Lanao, the Liguasan Marsh, and vast fishing grounds. It could be a major food production area not just for Mindanao but also for the entire country, he said.
Pinol is a former governor of Cotabato which is now part of the BARMM, with Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Maguindanao, Basilan, and Tawi-Tawi, along with Cotabato City and 67 barangays of North Cotabato. With his experience as a Mindanao local government leader and as secretary of the DA, he should be able to carry out, with President Duterte, our first-ever president from Mindanao, the many plans that have been laid out to finally realize the age-old promise of our southernmost region.