29 BARMM towns in Central Mindanao flooded

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro government has been extending humanitarian support since Monday, September 22, to no fewer than 97,000 villagers from flooded areas in its Special Geographic Area and two provinces near the now-inundated 220,000-hectare Ligawasan Delta.

The Ligawasan Delta, a catch basin for more than a dozen rivers that spring from mountain ranges in Bukidnon, Cotabato, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, South Cotabato, and Sultan Kudarat provinces, overflowed after last week’s heavy downpours in Central Mindanao, inundating 29 towns.

Reports obtained on Wednesday, September 24, from the office of Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and their calamity response outfit, the BARMM Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READi), said that at least 29 Bangsamoro towns in Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, and the Special Geographic Area have been flooded since last weekend.

BARMM’s Special Geographic Area, covering 63 predominantly Moro barangays grouped into eight towns created last year by the Bangsamoro Parliament via separate enabling measures, is located inside Cotabato province under Administrative Region 12.

BARMM-READi emergency responders, counterparts in local government units of the flooded municipalities, and personnel from the provincial disaster management offices in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur have relocated 46,223 flood-stricken villagers to safe areas since rescue operations began last Sunday, September 21.

Macacua said on Wednesday that he has directed BARMM-READi officials to expand emergency response operations to farther areas in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte, which are dotted with swamps and crisscrossed by rivers connected to the Ligawasan Delta.

Municipal and provincial officials told reporters that agencies of BARMM had distributed at least 26 tons of food supplies to villagers relocated to makeshift relief sites and multi-purpose covered courts on high ground far from their flooded barangays.

Macacua and BARMM-READi Director Mohammad Farzieh Abutazil are overseeing the Bangsamoro government's emergency response operations in the flooded areas within the core territory of the autonomous region.