Officials nix reports poverty in ARMM worsened

COTABATO CITY – Incumbent officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are not affected by the findings of the National Statistical Coordination Board that poverty worsened in parts of ARMM from 2003 to 2006.

“While that is a serious concern, it does not affect the present regional leadership because the impact of this leadership, in terms of poverty alleviation initiative, still has to be gauged by the NSCB two or three years from now,” said the ARMM’s executive secretary, lawyer Oscar Sampulna.

Sampulna said the incumbent ARMM governor, Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, has been trying to address the problem of underdevelopment in far-flung communities of the autonomous region through local and foreign-funded socio-economic projects.

Poverty in the ARMM, according to the latest NSCB report, which covered the period 2003 to 2006, ballooned to a level of becoming the country’s highest.

The business community in the ARMM doubts the accuracy of such report.

The ARMM’s agriculture secretary, Hadji Sajid Druz Ali, said the NSCB’s report, which indicates a 9.9 percent upswing in the region’s poverty level during the last four years, is debatable.

The report said the ARMM’s 49.4 percent poverty level rose to 55.3 percent in previous years, now higher than the recorded poverty prevalence in Mindanao’s CARAGA Region.

“We doubt the accuracy of the NSCB statistics because all provincial and municipal government units in ARMM have reported an increase in socio-economic and infrastructure projects that generated more jobs in the countryside,” Druz Ali told reporters in a text message.

Antonio Santos, chairman of the Transnational Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asian Growth Area Business Council, said there have been considerable improvements in the ARMM’s business climate in the past two years, but concerned sectors still have to focus on luring in foreign investors that can pour in much-needed capital inputs into the region.

ARMM covers Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Tawi-Tawi, Shariff Kabunsuan, Basilan and Sulu provinces and the cities of Marawi and Lamitan. The first three provinces belong to the country’s top poorest areas, the report said.

In other developments, Hadji Haron Bandila, president of the ARMM Regional Business Council, poverty in the autonomous region was wrongly construed to have worsened during the time of Ampatuan when the NSCB report covered only the periods 2003 to 2006.