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UNENDING WORK
--- ARMM's reappointed education secretary, John Magno (right), presides a
meeting of school superintendents after his return to the same post last week. (Contributed
by media partner)
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Hataman also named last week a scion of the
Maguindanaon nobility, Atty. Kirby Abdullah, as secretary of the Department of the
Interior and Local Government-ARMM.
Copies of the appointments of ophthalmologist
Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., Myra Borja Mangkabung, psychologist John Magno, and Engr. Don Loong as health, science and
technology, education, and public works secretaries, respectively, were
obtained by this paper’s media partner last Thursday from the Office of the
Regional Governor, touted as the “Little Malacañang” of the ARMM.
They were all asked by Hataman to file their
courtesy resignations last month for him to have a free hand in organizing a
regional Cabinet needed to help him manage the ARMM government, operating under
a constitutionally-mandated charter, Republic Act 9054.
Hataman also designated last week his deputy,
Regional Vice Governor Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman, as regional social welfare
secretary.
Lucman will manage the Department of Social
Welfare and Development-ARMM on concurrent capacity.
Hataman and Lucman, as the region’s highest
and second highest officials, respectively, can both act as regional
secretaries of chosen departments while performing their duties as elected
executives.
The multi-awarded Sinolinding, an
Indian-trained eye surgeon, started his medical career as a government “doctor
to the barrio” in the municipality of Pagalungan in the second district of
Maguindanao.
Sinolinding, Magno, Mangkabung, and Loong had
all served as members of the ARMM regional Cabinet during the first term of
Hataman, which lasted from June 30, 2013 to June 30, 2016.
Abdullah, a great grandson of the late Datu Udtog
Matalam, post-World War II governor of what was then geographically large
Empire Province of Cotabato, helped Hataman oversee the operations of the
Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team during the period.
He passed the Philippine Bar Examination in
2008 and became a full-fledged practicing lawyer on April 29, 2009.
Lucman was ARMM’s social welfare secretary
during his first term as regional vice governor. He and Hataman were both
elected to a second term during the May 9, 2016 regional polls.
Hataman also reinstated Cris Gaerlan, a
political analyst and an expert on Maranaw culture and traditions, as deputy
director of ARMM's Bureau of Public Information, under reappointed executive
director Amir Mawallil, a print journalist.
Magno, an industrial psychologist by
profession, is popular for having helped Hataman improve the Department of
Education-ARMM, touted as the most corrupt agency in the region during the time
of past regional governors.
DepEd-ARMM was then plagued by ghost teachers
and non-existent schools anomalously used as conduits for releases of operating
funds from the department’s coffer.
The agency now boasts of having about 3,000
duly-licensed teachers in its ranks, assigned in far-flung areas in the
region’s five provinces, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland
Mindanao, and the islands of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi.
DepEd-ARMM also has jurisdiction over schools
in the cities of Marawi and Lamitan, the provincial capitals of Lanao del Sur
and Basilan, respectively.
Loong, a civil engineer, is credited for his
hands-on involvement in Hataman’s infrastructure projects in the autonomous
region during the first term of the governor.
Records from state auditors and cooperating
non-government civil society blocs indicate that Loong and Hataman have had
infrastructure feats never accomplished by past administrations.
The Department of Public Works and
Highways-ARMM had constructed new and repaired a total of 1,509 kilometers of
roads criss-crossing the towns in the ARMM provinces from 2013 to 2015.
Besides having built 46 water supply
facilities in different towns in the past three years, the DPWH-ARMM had also
constructed more than a dozen seaports in Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi during
the period. (Contributed by media
partner – Mindanao Expose’)
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