DAVAO CITY—The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is developing its own set of standards and protocols for investments in its communities, in a bid to entice community business organizations to participate in investment ventures in their areas and ensure sustainability of the ventures to benefit them within a longer time frame.
The project engaging the community organizations would also be ARMM’s gradual adaption of a process it believes is the concept behind federalism, and which, it said, would also like to practice from now on.
Dubbed as “Brokering Business Investments in the Bangsamoro to Achieve Inclusive Development and Growth”, or Bridge, the project will be implemented by the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and the Hineleban Foundation. The Regional Board of Investments (RBOI)-ARMM has been listed as a project partner.
In a news statement released by the ARMM Bureau of Public Information, Bridge project “aims at facilitating the development of Bangsamoro-specific business investment standards and protocols. The project will empower both the communities and businesses to engage in sustainable business enterprises.”
The news statement added that the Bridge project will be funded by the Australian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The formal partnership was signed on January 23 at the ARMM Manila Liaison Office in Makati City between the PBSP and the RBOI.
It said the PBSP recently conducted a Development Partners’ Meeting with the Program Advisory Committee “to generate inputs on the formulation and finalization of the Business Sustainability Framework in Bangsamoro and how to improve project implementation.”
“Such framework seeks to define the role and behavior of corporations and partner communities that would make agribusiness investments in the Bangsamoro sustainable and responsible,” it said.
Lawyer Ishak V. Mastura, chairman and managing head of RBOI, said part of the project outcome “will strengthen the capacity of RBOI to facilitate investments in the ARMM, help capacitate local communities to engage in business development and promote businesses in the region among local and international investors”.
“The project is very relevant and timely because this will prepare us, especially on the business aspect, in the possible transition from the present form of government to federalism, which is what the Duterte administration is now pushing in Congress,” Mastura said.
ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman said the project would enhance the capacity of the communities to receive those investments, as he also disclosed that Duterte “was already promoting and encouraging business investments from big businesses and tycoons to the ARMM.”
“This project is relevant to spread the benefits of the investments coming into the communities,” he added.