Local execs in Basilan municipality donate April salaries for COVID-19 efforts

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Municipal officials and barangay captains in Maluso, Basilan donated their April salaries for the now three-week coronavirus containment efforts of their local government unit.

Only officials in Maluso, one of the 116 towns in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, have so far done such a charitable act in support of their LGU’s war on COVID-19.

The accumulated salary donations reached P837, 338, according to municipal administrator Rahman Sabito.

Maluso Mayor Hanie Bud said Tuesday members of their Sangguniang Bayan drafted Monday a resolution pledging their salaries for the month for relief works for Muslim and Christian communities displaced by the anti-COVID-19 quarantine restrictions being imposed in the municipality.

Bud said he too shall donate to their LGU’s anti-COVID-19 his pay for April.

All of the 19 barangay captains in Maluso also passed a resolution donating their respective honorariums for April to augment the funds intended for essential humanitarian interventions to ease the plight of local residents affected by quarantine measures.

“This gesture of my constituent-leaders is touching. They shall be remembered for this show of what kindness, amity and fraternalism,” Bud said Tuesday.

The military’s Western Mindanao Command and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro region, whose units are complementing the anti-coronavirus campaign of local officials in BARMM, were both quick to appreciate the move of the elected leaders in Maluso.

“They are keeping up with their oath to serve their constituents at all costs,” Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of WestMinCom, said Tuesday.

The WestMinCom covers all of the Bangsamoro region’s five provinces, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, and its two cities, Lamitan and Marawi.

Bud said the mobility and livelihood of residents of Maluso, relying mainly on farming and fishing in the town’s territorial seas, have been stifled by their LGU’s stringent anti-COVID-19 measures.

He said he is thankful to the Basilan provincial police office, the 4th Special Forces Battalion and 68th Infantry Battalion, both under the Army’s 101st Brigade, for supporting extensively their anti-coronavirus activities.