Cotabato City—It was a hot, sunny day in Cotabato City, hundreds of miles away from heated debates on whether business establishments in Tagaytay City, should reopen while its volcanic neighbor threatens to erupt once more.
As I approached the steps leading to the Office of the Chief Minister (OCM) Building, I saw several trucks parked in front of the beautiful edifice. On the side of the trucks were tarps that simply said, “Tabang For Taal, From Bangsamoro.” Tabang means help, and inside these trucks were medicines, bottled water, hygiene kits, food, and other relief items.
In a simple send-off ceremony, interim Chief Minister Ahod B. Ebrahim-Al Hadj said that the Bangsamoro organic law stipulates as part of moral governance the willingness and capacity of its people and regional government to help those in need within or outside their territory.
“Inside these trucks are relief goods for at least 1,500 affected families. We have allocated 500 relief bags for residents from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao areas staying in evacuation centers, and the rest will be shared with other evacuees,” he said. The BARMM leader also mentioned that its autonomous government also rendered calamity assistance to Mindanao residents affected by recent earthquakes.
It was an auspicious start to a morning that showed the compassionate side of the BARMM. A year after the historic plebiscite that ratified its creation, the BARMM government is slowly but surely finding its place.
They face enormous challenges. For example, the BARMM job portal that featured less than 2,000 job openings found itself nearly crashing with more than 100,000 resumes from aspiring civil servants.
“As a newly established government, we know that we need to do what we can to create employment opportunities for our people,” Executive Secretary Abdulraof Macacua said in his keynote speech at the Bajau Hall of the OCM Building on Tuesday (January 21).
The executive secretary and this writer, in my capacity as president of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, met on Tuesday to sign a memorandum of agreement leading to the creation of a BARMM Task Force Against the Trafficking of overseas Filipino workers. This formal agreement covers the following key areas of cooperation—timely assistance and repatriation of distressed OFWs, anti-trafficking preventive education campaign in grassroots communities, the use of technology in tracking down and monitoring cases of illegal recruitment and human trafficking, and the formulation of a policy and operational framework to address the root causes of human trafficking. Atty. Yvette Coronel, the acting executive director of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), witnessed the signing of the agreement alongside BARMM Deputy Executive Secretary Abdullah Cusain.
“The IACAT looks forward to the active implementation of this agreement as an important first step and please be assured of our full support in ensuring its definite success,” Coronel said, in her inspirational message.
According to the OWWA-BARMM Regional Director Uga Sulaiman, his office handles a monthly average of 250 welfare cases involving OFWs from the region. He said that cases involving the recruitment of minors to work in the Middle East usually involve relatives of the victims, which makes it difficult for the victims and their families to pursue cases. Macacua recounted that a person that he admonished for trying to recruit for abroad thought that trafficking only involved vehicles. “He had no idea that what he was doing was already a crime.”
BARMM covers five provinces, namely, Basilan (except Isabela City), Landao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi; three cities, namely Cotabato City, Lamitan City and Marawi City; as well as 116 municipalities and 2,590 barangays. Its porous borders make it a region that is highly susceptible to human smuggling and human-trafficking operations. Minister Dickson Hermoso of the BARMM’s Ministry of Transportation and Communication said that in a recent presidential visit, no less than President Duterte expressed concern over the rising incidence of abuse involving OFWs from BARMM.
Hermoso urged for greater vigilance in monitoring the activities of human-trafficking syndicates, including how they transport their victims from Mindanao to Sabah, and beyond.
Labor Minister Romeo Sema agreed. He said that unlike the previous autonomous regional government, the BARMM has more power and a clearer mandate to protect its workers. “Under the Ministry of Labor and Employment, we will integrate the POEA and OWWA in the new structure,” Sema said, adding that his office intends to regulate the operations of local and overseas recruitment agencies.
It was heartwarming to see and hear all of these aspirations and gestures of affirmative leadership from BARMM’s top officials led by interim Chief Minister Ahod B. Ebrahim-Al Hadj. The Bangsamoro heartland is in a state of transition but positivism and a palpable desire among its officials to make a clear difference inspires hope among its people.
That they are organizing relief efforts for the victims of the Taal Volcano eruptions tell us that in any calamity, we, Filipinos, help as one. We also care as one, especially for OFWs who have become the economic lifeline of so many struggling families during these uncertain and troubling times.
Iba talaga ang Pinoy!
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Susan V. Ople heads the Blas F. Ople Policy Center and Training Institute, a nonprofit organization that deals with labor and migration issues. She also represents the OFW sector in the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking.