Tribespeople receive solar lights from BARMM officials

COTABATO CITY — A peace activist in the Bangsamoro parliament distributed on Tuesday solar light sets for marginalized tribal enclaves in Carmen and Kabacan towns in Cotabato in support of domestic peace and development programs for ancestral domains of the indigenous people in both areas.

The outreach activity is an initiative of the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Monera Sinolinding Jr. of the 80-seat parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, supported by the office Regional Minister Ahod Balawag Ebrahim and officials of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples Affairs-BARMM.

Sinolinding said that their outreach activity was meant to complement the peace and sustainable development initiatives of Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, who has administrative jurisdiction over Carmen and Kabacan that both have Moro-dominated barangays covered by the BARMM government.

Radio reports on Wednesday in Kabacan and in Cotabato’s nearby Midsayap town stated that the office of Sinolinding handed over, through its most senior staff member, the lawyer Zaidamin Bagundang, the 25 solar light sets to representatives of the ethnic Menufu Aromanen groups in Kitulaan in Carmen and in Tamped, Kabacan.

The solar light sets were procured using allocations from Sinolinding’s 2023 Transitional Development Impact Fund

The turnover event was held in Barangay Kayaga in the municipality of Kabacan, home to mixed Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous residents.

The office of Sinolinding, as part of Tuesday's activity, also provided with allowances a number of out-of-school tribespeople now being trained on livelihood and entrepreneurial skills lectures by personnel in Cotabato province of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.