Expansion of private power firm to Maguindanao del Norte sought

COTABATO CITY — The provincial government of Maguindanao del Norte had urged the private power utility in Cotabato City to cover the province to sustain the now improving business climate in the area.

Mayors and members of the business community in Maguindanao del Norte have long been ranting about the incapability of the Maguindanao Electric Cooperative to efficiently supply electricity to the province that has 12 component-towns.

The Bangsamoro Business Council supports the effort of the Maguindanao del Norte governor’s office.

“Adequate supply of electricity in areas where local and foreign investors can put up viable businesses is very important,” the entrepreneur-lawyer Ronald Hallid Torres, chairman of Bangsamoro Business Council, said on Tuesday, September 10.

Gov. Abdulraof Macacua told reporters last Monday, after leading the celebration then of the second founding anniversary of Maguindanao del Norte, that he and provincial planners are together working out the possible expansion of the operation of the Cotabato Light and Power Company, or Colight, into the province.

The Colight is owned by the Aboitiz Company that also operates the Davao Light and Power Company covering Davao City and all of its districts around.

Mayors in Maguindanao del Norte told reporters who covered Monday’s event in Sultan Mastura that they want the Colight to supply power to their municipalities, where there has been an influx of investors in recent months.

Officials of police and military units in Maguindanao del Norte said on Tuesday that sustainable development have been spreading around the province, one of the six provinces in the Bangsamoro region, since its creation two years ago via a plebiscite administered by the Commission on Elections in towns that are now under its jurisdiction.

Records obtained on Tuesday from the office of Brig. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division indicate that police and military units scattered in Maguindanao del Norte had secured, via backchannel dialogues supported by local executives, the surrender in the past 24 months of 71 members of local terrorist groups from across the province.

The former terrorists who had pledged allegiance to the government had been reintegrated into mainstream society, now engaged in farming and fishing activities as sources of income, according to Tanggawohn and Army Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, the commander of 6th ID.