BSP Cotabato, media community cooperating in public info thrusts

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Members of the media community in the Bangsamoro region have fused ranks to help the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) educate the local communities on how its large operations center here can help push forward regional commerce and trade.

Radio reports on Sunday, October 27, stated that the reporters who had assured of support to the public information thrusts of the BSP are peace and conflict-sensitive journalism enthusiasts supportive of multi-sector efforts on fostering progress in the autonomous region via the promotion of interfaith solidarity among the Muslim, Christian and indigenous communities and empowerment of small and medium enterprises and groups engaged in traditional crafts.

The BSP facilitated in Cotabato City last October 22 a media information session, where its officials and participants talked lengthily on how the state's central monetary authority can help the public in terms of banking and finance, which is something not so known to most residents of the Bangsamoro region that has five provinces and three cities.

The newly-established operations center of the BSP in Cotabato City is only about six hundred meters away from the 32-hectare Bangsamoro regional capitol.

The regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which replaced in 2019 the then 27-year and now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was created as part of the peace overture between Malacañang and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Among the participants to the BSP’s media information session were reporters of the oldest broadcast outfit in Cotabato City, the Catholic Station DXMS of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, and the Station DXMY of the Radio Mindanao Network that has stations across the country.

Both radio stations pioneered peace and conflict-sensitive journalism in Cotabato City.