ARMM gets P10.1-billion budget for infrastructure

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Source:http://www.mb.com.ph/armm-gets-p10-1-billion-budget-for-infrastructure/
Sunday, January 10, 2016

By Ali G. Macabalang

Cotabato City – The national government has allocated P10.1 billion for infrastructure projects in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for this year.

While the ARMM infrastructure budget remains the smallest among all the regions in the country, the allocation would have to suffice to support peace and development in the region, according to Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-ARMM Secretary Don Mustapha Loong.

The infrastructure subsidy would be implemented with maximum transparence to the optimum benefit of the general populace in ARMM,” Loong said.

The ARMM share will be allocated by the DPWH central office for its regional office in the autonomous region to implement.

Regional Legislative Assembly Speaker Ronnie Sinsuat and Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman signed late last month Muslim Mindanao Autonomy (MMA) Act No. 325 of 2016.

The local law appropriates the P10.1B subsidy to construction, upgrading, and operation or maintenance of roads, highways, bridges, flood control, water supply systems, sea and air ports, and other infrastructure projects excluding buildings.

In last four or five years, the DPWH-ARMM has gradually shed its former image of being one of the two most corruption-laden agencies in the autonomous region. Such feat earned regional and national awards for the leadership of the agency in 2013, 14 and 2015, it was learned.

Reforms in the DPWH-ARMM began in 2012 when President Aquino, through Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson tasked Assistant Secretary Emil Sadain to fix lapses in engineering management and operations in the autonomous region, official reports said.

The budget was increased to P1-billion under the Arroyo government. The subsidy was budgeted annually by the ARMM legislative assembly in what Sadain once lamented as graft-prone allocations for “gravelling and re-gravelling of local roads.”