COTABATO CITY – Constituents of faraway Turtle Islands in Tawi-Tawi province will soon have better access to the services of the Bangsamoro Government as a P25-million worth municipal hall is being built by the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG).
Funded under the Support to Local Moral Governance Fund of 2021, the municipal hall aims to improve the services of local government units and ensure that moral governance is felt even in the farthest town of the Bangsamoro autonomous region.
MILG Minister Atty. Naguib Sinarimbo said distance is not a hindrance in constructing a town hall in such a remote area.
“Despite its distance, we are also constructing a municipal hall for this farthest municipality to ensure that governance is also felt there,” Sinarimbo said.
“We thank the local government unit of Turtle Islands led by Mayor Haji Faisal Jamalul for this partnership,” he added.
According to MILG, the town hall will not only serve as a help desk for the government’s bureaucracy and implement policies for the betterment of its constituents, but it will also provide symbolic functions in the community. It would serve as a venue for holding local government business, implementing government services, and conducting public related services and activities within offices or council meeting rooms.
Turtle Islands is a fifth-class municipality with over 4,000 populations and is considered a protected and natural breeding ground for green sea turtles (pawikan). Presidential Proclamation No .171 s. 1999 established it as a protected area pursuant to RA No. 7586 also known as the National Integrated Protected Area System (NIPAS) Act of 1992 and RA No. 9147 or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act, both of which prohibit the collection of turtle eggs.
Consisting of six (6) small islands namely Taganak, Baguan, Langaan, Boan, Lihiman, and the Great Bakungan, the Turtle Islands is closer to Malaysia than to Tawi-Tawi’s capital town of Bongao.(Majid Nur/BIO with reports from MILG)