BARMM mulls law to recognize outstanding LGU executives

COTABATO CITY — Six lawmakers in the 80-seat Bangsamoro Parliament are pushing for a regional law that would institutionalize the annual granting of a special citation, along with funding incentives for special projects, to outstanding city, municipal, and provincial chief executives in the autonomous region.

The Salamat Excellence Award for Leadership (SEAL) Act of 2025 seeks to institutionalize a recognition program for exemplary local executives in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), aiming to promote good governance across its five provinces and three cities.

The main proponent of the measure, lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, who was appointed to the BARMM Parliament last month by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., told reporters on Friday, April 18, that each awardee will receive a gold medallion and a cash incentive of up to P20 million, which can be allocated for community projects.

The bill, introduced by Sinarimbo, a former Bangsamoro local government minister, was co-authored by regional lawmakers Abdullah Hashim, Romeo Sema, Rashdi Adiong, Alirakim Munder, and Amer Zaakaria Rakim for deliberation and approval by the BARMM Parliament.

During his tenure as local government minister, Sinarimbo pioneered the annual SEAL Award as a special initiative of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government–BARMM, recognizing outstanding local executives in the region. The proposed law now seeks to formally institutionalize the award.

“It is time to institutionalize that as regional law,” Sinarimbo said on Friday.

The SEAL Award was first introduced in 2022 by the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government–BARMM (MILG-BARMM) under the leadership of Sinarimbo, to recognize outstanding local executives in the Bangsamoro region.

Now an annual initiative of the MILG-BARMM, the award was also conceptualized to honor the legacy of the late Sheik Salamat Hashim, founder of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Hashim, who studied Islamic theology at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, was among the founding members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) before breaking away in the late 1970s to form the MILF in 1981.

The creation in 2019 of BARMM, which replaced the then less empowered 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was the result of two decades of peace talks between the MILF and the national government.

Leaders of the MILF and the MNLF, which have separate peace agreements with the national government, are managing some of the ministries and support agencies under the Bangsamoro government. Both fronts also have representatives in the 80-member BARMM parliament.