2 new municipalities created in ARMM

COTABATO CITY — Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan has approved the creation of two new municipalities, bringing to 102 the total number of towns in the region.

The 24-seat Regional Assembly passed the charters creating Sibutu and Datu Blah Sinsuat towns in Tawi-Tawi and Maguindanao, respectively.

Speaker Paisalin Tago said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will conduct plebiscites in the affected areas to determine if the local folk support the creation of the new municipalities.

Ampatuan said Sibutu would cover about half of its mother-municipality, Sitangkai, an old town in Tawi-Tawi, while Datu Blah Sinsuat will be composed of the coastal barangays of North Upi, a hinterland town in the first district of Maguindanao.

Ampatuan said he will appoint Datu Mana’ut Sinsuat as officer-in-charge of the newly created Datu Blah Sinsuat municipality, named after the late Datu Blah, a guerrilla who fought the Japanese during World War II and an undefeated member of Congress from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Apart from signing the charters of the two towns, Tago said Ampatuan also enacted into law the ARMM’s Public Works Act for 2006, which outlines all priority projects for impoverished areas of the autonomous region.

The ARMM covers Marawi City, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, and the island-provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

"The Public Works Act spells out the equitable allocation of a P650-million infrastructure package from the government for various projects in the ARMM this year," Tago said.

Tago said Ampatuan first initiated extensive dialogues with all mayors and governors before the Regional Assembly passed the Public Works Act.

"The legislative and executive branches of the ARMM saw to it that there would be an equitable distribution among all of the region’s component municipalities of the infrastructure package for 2006," he said.

Tago, Ampatuan and all of the region’s governors and mayors belong to the administration party Lakas-Christian, Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), whose regional chapter is jointly led by Ampatuan and Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong.