COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao officer-in-charge Gov. Mujiv Hataman has retained two members of the old regional Cabinet and appointed three insiders and four newcomers as regional secretaries to help him reform the ARMM bureaucracy.
Hataman told reporters yesterday the nine appointees constitute only about half of the key positions in the regional Cabinet.
Hataman said he retained physician Kadil Sinolinding Jr. and Haron Al-Rashid Lucman as health and local government secretaries, respectively, based on their performance when Ansarudin Adiong was still acting governor from December 2009 to December 2011.
Sinolinding is a Maguindanaon, while Lucman, a lawyer, is a Maranaw from Lanao del Sur.
Hataman said he just “borrowed” his public works secretary, engineer Emil Sadain, a Tausog, from the central office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
He said Sadain, the DPWH’s assistant secretary for foreign-funded projects, will help him improve the operations of the ARMM public works department pending the election of a new set of regional officials in 2013.
Hataman appointed three ranking ARMM career employees: engineer Marites Maguindra, an Iranun, as trade secretary; Kahal Kedtag, environment secretary; and Abduhalim Mohamad, agrarian reform secretary.
Maguindra was a career officer of the ARMM’s Department of Trade and Industry. Kedtag was Maguindanao’s provincial natural resources chief, while Mohamad, a Sama from Tawi-Tawi, was a para-legal officer of the region’s Department of Agrarian Reform.
Hataman’s newly installed labor secretary, Muslimin Jakilan, a Yakan from Basilan, also held the same post during the term of former ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan.
The region’s new agriculture secretary, Sangkula Tindick, was the provincial chief for Tawi-Tawi of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Hataman said he has entrusted the ARMM’s education department to a Tausog lawyer, Jamar Kulayan.
The governor’s office has direct control over more than 30 line agencies and support offices devolved by the national government.