WHEN Malacañan claimed in 2011 that the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was a failed experiment, it definitely did not expect that it would become exactly the opposite under the administration of incumbent regional governor Mujiv Hataman.
Although even then, former President Fidel V. Ramos had been cautioning the Aquino III administration against passing judgment on the ARMM which took root during his mother former President Corazon Aquino’s administration.
The ARMM, established on September 2, 1996 during Ramos’ term, or almost 29 years ago, was created by virtue of the Organic Act of 1989 and was finalized as a result of the 1996 peace agreement.
In the latest BBL hearing at the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, majority of the Mindanao governors present have expressed their opposition to the bill and their desire to enhance instead the present ARMM law.
“I do not want to be called a Moro. I want to be called a Muslim Filipino,” Sulu patriarch Vice Governor Abdusakur Tan said during the hearing chaired by Senator Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos.
Gov. Tan was vocal in praising Governor Hataman for the good things that he was doing in the region, prompting the latter to approach Tan and the other ARMM local execs to offer his hand in gratitude.
During the breakfast hosted by Hataman for ARMM mayors and officials at the Hotel Sofitel before the BBL hearing, the only governor present was Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu of Maguindanao. He was, in fact, the only governor of the nine (9) present in the Senate hearing who expressed approval of the draft BBL.
In that breakfast meeting, a position paper of the ARMM mayors and officials supporting the BBL was presented highlighting the unprecedented performance of the current ARMM administration even while peace talks were under way, an antithesis to the claim that the ARMM is a failed experiment.
I have personally witnessed in my travels that even the remotest of areas in the ARMM are now becoming accessible to government services under Hataman’s leadership. BEEN THERE DONE THAT/JOSEPHINE CODILLA
