The chairperson of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the provincial disaster risk reduction and management officer of South Cotabato in Region 12 and the director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region talked briefly about partnership in development initiatives during a casual meeting in Cotabato City last Thursday, August 7, 2025.

MinDA’s secretary, Leo Tereso Magno, Rolly Doane Cuenca Aquino, who is at the helm of the PDRRMO under South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr., and PRO-BAR’s director, Police Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, met at the sideline of Thursday’s Chief Minister’s Hour in the capitol of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao where they informally exchanged insights on how they can best cooperate in peace and development efforts for the local communities in the adjoining South Cotabato and BARMM’s Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces.

BARMM’s chief minister, Abdulrauf Macacua, reported during the Chief Minister’s Hour last Thursday the accomplishments of the Bangsamoro regional government since its inception in 2019 and his administration’s planned pro-poor and other public service thrusts in the coming months.

The BARMM, a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, replaced in 2019 the then 27-year less empowered Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front, led by Muslimin Sema, the current BARMM labor and employment minister, are together managing several agencies under the virtually still fledgling Bangsamoro regional government. The MILF and the MNLF have separate peace agreements with the national government.

Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity Carlito Galvez, Jr., Special Assistant to the President Antonio Ernesto Lagdameo, Basilan Vice Gov. Hadjiman Salliman and his constituent-mayor, Roderick Furigay of Lamitan City, Maguindanao del Norte’s governor, Tucao Mastura, and vice governor, Marshall Sinsuat, and the congressional representative of the province, Dimple Mastura, also attended the Chief Minister’s Hour, held at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex inside the 32-hectare BARMM capitol in uptown Cotabato City.

Aquino said South Cotabato’s provincial chief executive, Tamayo, is keen on promoting economic ties among his constituents and the communities in BARMM’s Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces in Central Mindanao.

Aquino said Tamayo, now in his third and last term as South Cotabato’s provincial governor, is a staunch supporter of Malacañang’s peace overtures with Mindanao’s Moro communities.

Photo shows MinDA’s secretary, Magno (right), Aquino and De Guzman of the Bangsamoro regional police in a huddle while at the BARMM capitol in Cotabato City last Thursday, August 7. (August 10, 2025, Cotabato City, Bangsamoro Region)