COTABATO CITY, Philippines --- Two entities of the Bangsamoro government have mobilized hundreds of rapid response personnel for possible emergencies during the autonomous region’s first ever regional parliamentary polls on Monday, September 14.
Personnel of the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the Bangsamoro Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, most known as the Bangsamoro READi, are on duty since Saturday as part of the regional government’s preparations for Monday’s electoral exercise.
The territory of BARMM encompasses the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where its 32-hectare regional government center is located.
The ambulances and rescue vehicles and equipment of the Bangsamoro READi, which is under the office of Local Government Minister Jordan Bayan, are now on standby in the region's capitol in uptown Cotabato City, ready for mobilization anytime.
Regional officials told reporters on Sunday, September 13, that Bayam and physicians in the MOH-BARMM shall jointly oversee the operation of the emergency responders, to work along with medics in the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.
Police Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of PRO-BAR, said their medics had been fused with police teams dispatched to BARMM provinces and cities as part of their election security missions, under the supervision of the Commission on Elections.
Chairman George Erwin Garcia of the Commission on Elections told reporters, during a forum on Friday at the campus of the Notre Dame University in Cotabato City, that he and all of his subordinate-poll officials based in the autonomous region’s five provinces and three cities, the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police are all set for Monday’s regional electoral exercise.