BARMM lawmakers mull creation of new hospital, upgrade of old one

COTABATO CITY —  Members of the Bangsamoro parliament want to improve a small medical dispensary and create a new one on two remote islands where sick islanders can hardly be evacuated to modern hospitals outside when seas are rough.

The Information Office of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliament announced on Tuesday that regional lawmakers have filed Bill 269, a measure enabling the set up of the Bongo Community Hospital on Bongo Island in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte, and Bill 264 to improve the Siasi District Hospital in Siasi, Sulu. 

Siasi is an island town close to the border of the territorial seas of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, both component-provinces of BARMM.

The proposal to create the Bongo Community Hospital, or BCH, was authored by BARMM parliament members Suwaib Oranon and the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding Jr. He is popularly known as “the doctor in the Bangsamoro parliament,” whose humanitarian team has treated free 3,116 marginalized people from across the Bangsamoro region and Region 12 with eye problems, including cataract and ptyregium, since he was appointed as member of the regional lawmaking body in August 2023 by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Bongo Island, covering Barangays Litayen, Tagudtungan, Tuka Maror, Gadungan Pibpandaran, Macarimbang, Limbayan and Kutungan, is home to mixed Iranun, Tausug, Sama and Badjao communities, is about seven miles off the shores of the seaside Parang town in northwest of Maguindanao del Norte.

Parang Mayor Cahar Ibay told reporters on Tuesday that he and and his constituent barangay officials in Bongo are thankful to Sinolinding and Oranon for authoring a bill aiming to set up a community hospital on the island.

“We are wishing for its immediate enactment into a regional law. We are ready to help put up that medical facility in Bongo once its creation gets the approval of the 80-member BARMM parliament,” Ibay said.

The BARMM parliament’s Information Office said that Bill 264 is also an enabling measure for the expansion of the Siasi District Hospital, or SDH, operating for 58 years now.

If approved by the BARMM parliament, the bill shall double the 25-bed capacity of the hospital and upgrade its facilities.

Bill 264 was authored by Sinolinding and 14 other parliament members, Hamid Malik, Nurredha Misuari, Deputy Speaker Abdulkarim Misuari, Tarhata Maglangit, Amilbahar Mawallil, Rasol Mitmog, Hashemi Dilangalen, Albakil Jikiri, Romeo Sema, Muslimin Jakilan, Adzfar Usman, Denmartin Kahalan, Randolph Parcasio and Abdulazis Amenoden.

The Bills 264 and 269 compel the Ministry of Health-BARMM to oversee and bankroll the operations of the proposed BCH and the upgrading of the old SDH in Siasi, which is about six hours via sea travel to Sulu's capital Jolo, where the Sulu Provincial Hospital is located.