More than 70 marginalized Moro families in the Old Kaabacan town in Cotabato province benefited from a food dispersal activity of Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua and regional lawmaker Doctor Kadil Sinolinding, Jr. on Monday, August 11, 2025.

The Old Kaabacan is one of the eight still like infant Bangsamoro towns in Cotabato province in Region 12, created via separate enabling measures just last year by the 80-seat regional parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Mayor Tonicks Enalang and barangay leaders in Old Kaabacan told reporters on Tuesday, August 12, that they are thankful to parliament member Sinolinding and Macacua for having embarked on the food dispersal activity in their municipality.

The physician-ophthalmologist Sinolinding is also functioning, in concurrent capacity, as health minister of the BARMM government.

A team from Sinolinding’s office in the BARMM parliament facilitated the distribution of rice and canned goods to the Moro families from Old Kaabacan’s seven barangays — Pedtad, Simone, Nangaan, Sanggadong, Buluan, Simbuay and Tamped.

“We are thankful to Minister Sinolinding and Chief Minister Macacua for reaching out to the poor families in our municipality,” Enalang said.

Enalang ang his constituent-barangay leaders had also told reporters they are as grateful to the governor of Cotabato, Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, for her continuing public services programs for residents of BARMM’s Special Geographic Area (SGA) in Cotabato, despite being no longer under her administration’s jurisdiction.

The SGA covers 63 predominantly Moro barangays in different towns in Cotabato whose residents voted in favor of the inclusion of their domains in the core territory of BARMM during a plebiscite in 2019. The 63 barangays are now grouped together into eight BARMM towns, Pahamuddin, Kadayangan, Nabalawag, Old Kaabakan, Kapalawan, Malidegao, Tugunan and Ligawasan.

“The provincial government of Cotabato has not stopped from providing us in the Special Geographic Area with services that we need. We are thankful to the governor of Cotabato province,” Enalang said in Filipino, referring to Taliño-Mendoza, now in her second term as Cotabato provincial governor. (August 12, 2025, Old Kaabacan in Cotabato Province, Region 12)