COTABATO CITY (Monday, September 8, 2025) — Up to 86 marginalized villagers from different barangays in Bongao and in other island towns in Tawi-Tawi underwent free cataract and pterygium surgery during a three-day multi-sector eye care mission last week.

Provincial officials and ranking employees in the office of Tawi-Tawi Gov. Yshmael Sali, told reporters in Cotabato City on Monday, September 8, that the physicians from the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region had also provided with free reading glasses 200 other elderly residents of Bongao during their September 2 to 4 medical outreach mission in the municipality.

The island Bongao town is one of the 11 municipalities in Tawi-Tawi, a component-province of the BARMM.

Regional Health Minister Kadil Sinolinding, Jr. had told reporters that the medical mission was supported by Sali, now in his second term as governor, the physician Sangkula Laja, who is chief of the Tawi-Tawi Integrated Provincial Health Office, and the employees of the Datu Halun Sakilan Memorial Hospital in Bongao.

The physician-ophthalmologist Sinolinding, also functioning as member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament in concurrent capacity, said most of the cataract and pterygium patients that they have treated relied mainly on menial jobs as sources of income for the the daily needs of their families.

“We are thankful to the medical team from the Bangsamoro regional government for having done this medical mission for the poor residents of our province,” Sali said.

Sali said he is also grateful to BARMM’s chief minister, Abdulrauf Macacua, for sending the team of Sinolinding to Bongao for the three-day eye care mission.

The medical mission was initiated as part of last week’s 52nd Kamahardikaan sin Tawi-Tawi festivities, in celebration of the 52nd founding anniversary of the island province.

The oldest eye patient who underwent ophthalmic surgery during the outreach activity in Bongao is the 91-year-old Asia Abdulla, according to a post mission report by the MoH-BARMM.

Another eye patient, the 65-year-old Abbas Gamal, a resident of Tandubas, also an island town, was quoted in radio reports as saying that he was lucky that his cataract was treated free by eye surgeons led by Sinolinding since his family could not afford the cost of travel to Zamboanga City for treatment.

“We are grateful to all of those who facilitated this medical mission. With my eyesight restored, I can again work to earn money for the daily expenses of my family,” a beneficiary of the humanitarian activity, the 60-year Ubah Hairol, said in Filipino in a video shared to reporters by medics.