ARMM donates ambulance to Cotabato folk

COTABATO CITY – The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao donated Sunday an ambulance to local health authorities to break the political barriers between the ARMM and residents here that voted against the city’s inclusion into the expanded autonomous area during a plebiscite in 2001.

The ARMM’s health secretary, Hadji Tahir Sulaik, said the ambulance, a brand new Nissan van, was procured for the city government by the region’s chief executive, Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, using his special purpose fund.

“The city may not be a part of the ARMM administratively and politically, but it deserves all the support from us because it is the seat of the ARMM government and majority of its residents are related both by blood and by affinity to residents of the provinces inside the autonomous region,” Sulaik said.

Sulaik said the ambulance Ampatuan donated to the city health office, channeled through the office of Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, was over and above the other assistance the 40-year-old governor has been extending to residents here, among them support for the yearly Shariff Kabunsuan festival, the Sallam Bridge projects, and the accommodation of qualified local leaders to the regional cabinet.

Sema said the new ambulance Ampatuan has donated will boost the operation of the city health office, which covers 37 barangays, some populated by members of the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has an ongoing peace talks with the national government. – John Unson