Free licensing offered to low-income drivers in BARMM

COTABATO CITY — Marginalized drivers of passenger vehicles, cargo trucks and tricycles in the Bangsamoro region can now renew their licenses for free through a program of their transportation and communications ministry.

Top officials of transport groups here told reporters on Tuesday morning that the free application of new and renewal of old licenses project of the office of Bangsamoro Transportation and Communications Minister Paisalin Tago and six members of the 80-seat regional parliament is a big help to low income drivers in the region.

Ranking employees of the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Office here separately announced on Monday that the program is partly bankrolled with allocations from the Transitional Development Impact Fund of each of six lawmakers in the 80-member Bangsamoro parliament, Jaafar Apollo Mikhail Matalam, Hashemi Dilangalen, Amilbahar Mawallil, Rasul Ismael, Rasol Mitmug Jr. and Khalid Ma-Amor Hadji Abdullah.

Tago, who is also a member of the parliament, said their processing of renewal and applications of new drivers’ licenses for poor residents of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was launched last March 8 via a simple rite at the BARMM capitol in Cotabato City.

“The project is also supported by the office of our regional chief minister, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim,” Tago said.

BARMM covers the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.

“This program is so good for low income drivers of passenger vehicles, something first in Mindanao and is good for the community-empowerment agenda of the peace process between the national government and Mindanao’s Moro sectors,” the lawyer-entrepreneur Ronald Hallid Torres, chairman of the Bangsamoro Business Council, said.