ARMM gov't launches P9-M water supply project in Maguindanao

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Officials on Thursday launched a P9 million worth water system project for thousands of villagers in the town proper of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

The project, funded out of the 2015 infrastructure budget of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), is meant to ensure adequate daily supply of clean water, from an underground source, for villagers residing at the center of  Datu Odin Sinsuat in southeast of the province.

The ARMM has P223 million worth of current infrastructure projects in Datu Odin Sinsuat being implemented jointly by the regional public works department and the office of Mayor Ombra Sinsuat.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, Sinsuat and his son, Lester, who is Maguindanao’s incumbent vice governor, led the launching of the water system project, in the presence of local officials and reporters of different media outfits.

The project shall be made up of a deep underground well, from where power-generated water pumps could siphon clean water to be stored in a reservoir which will supply water to villages in the surroundings.

Also present in the event were Nash Ibrahim, chief of Maguindanao’s first District Engineering Office, and Mayor Ibrahim Ibay of Parang town also in Maguindanao.

Ibay is chairman of the Iranun Development Council, a socio-economic alliance of four vote-rich, Iranun-dominated towns in the first district of Maguindanao.

Hataman said the ARMM government has earmarked bigger grants for infrastructure projects in the municipality in 2016.

“What this administration accomplished in terms of infrastructure development in ARMM in the past three years is something past administrations did not accomplish for about two decades,” Hataman said in a message after the symbolic project groundbreaking rite.

ARMM was created in 1990 following the ratification in the same year via a plebiscite of its first ever charter, the Republic Act 6734, then covering only the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

The ARMM’s first charter was amended through another referendum in 2001, which resulted to its change from R.A. 6743 to R.A.9054.

The ratification of R.A.9054 also resulted to the inclusion of Basilan and Marawi City to ARMM’s core territory.

Hataman said residents of Datu Odin Sinsuat ought to thank President Benigno Aquino III for all the infrastructure grants the ARMM government had given to the municipality in the past two years.

He said credit also has to go to his public works secretary, engineer Don Mustapha Loong, and Ibrahim for their hands-on involvement in the implementation of the region’s infrastructure projects in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Ibrahim said the regional government has earmarked a P217 million grant for various infrastructure projects in the municipality in 2016.

Local officials had told Hataman they are contended with how Ibrahim is managing ARMM’s infrastructure projects in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

“We don’t have problem working with him. We can accomplish more projects soon together,” Mayor Sinsuat told ARMM officials and journalists.