Philippines: ARMM vows to enhance economic dev’t programs

By NONOY E. LACSON – www.mb.com.ph
December 10, 2010, 3:43pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) acting Gov. Ansaruddin Adiong on Friday vowed to enhance further the ARMM’s socio-economic development program which aims to improve the standard of living of the over four million people in the region.

According to Adiong, his governance will continue to adopt strategic measures to fully develop the region’s economic potentials and support Mindanao’s overall economic growth.

Adiong expressed belief that with the support of the national government and the international community, his leadership can achieve more in terms of his peace and development efforts.

As this developed, he appealed to his detractors to give ARMM administration a chance by extending their respective supports to the programs of government of the ARMM.

“Let me appeal to all Muslim leaders in ARMM regardless of their political belief and ethnical identity to extend more support to our program of governance for the well-being of Muslim Mindanao,” Adiong said.

He said his governance will continue to streamline the regional bureaucracy and conduct rational allocation and efficient programming of resources especially for locally-funded agencies in order to strengthen service delivery ARMM tasked agencies to strictly monitor and evaluate the implementation of programs and projects through an enhanced Performance Management System to ensure responsiveness and accountability of our agencies, he said.

Adiong also emphasized that the ARMM will continue developing and promote the region’s potentials in the halal industry citing the peoples’ cultural ties with the Muslim countries.

ARMM will also concentrate in the delivery of social services to the people of the region, poverty alleviation and livelihood activities, quality education and universal health care and other social development-oriented projects, the acting ARMM governor said.

ARMM will also revive the traditional barter trading with the neighboring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia using the Polloc Freeport as the port of entry, and will continue the implementation of priority investment programs and projects, including those to be funded out of the P1- billion infrastructure funds under the 2011 budget, he explained.