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The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will fund two important projects in the region – the ARMM’s Regional Standards and Testing Laboratories at the ARMM regional complex in Cotabato City, and the Mother and Child Pavilion at the Maguindanao Provincial Hospital in Shariff Aguak town.
Project manager Mustapha Sambolawan said that both are under the ARMM Social Fund Project (ASFP).
The ASFP is under the ministerial control of ARMM Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan who serves as the conduit of the World Bank for its socio-economic projects in far-flung communities in the region.
The research and laboratory facilities will be built beside the ARMM’s Department of Science and Technology building inside the 32-hectare ARMM complex in Cotabato City.
Sambolawan said the facilities will enhance the quality of marketable products of industries in the autonomous region.
On Tuesday, ranking ARMM officials attended the groundbreaking rites for the facility, which costs P5 M.
The next day, the groundbreaking for the P11.5-million Mother and Child Pavilion was held inside the Maguindanao provincial hospital compound in Shariff Aguak, the capital town of Maguindanao.
Hadji Tahir Sulaik, ARMM health secretary, said the pavilion would provide medical services and other interventions that can hasten the promotion of maternal and child care in Maguindanao.
“It is very painful to see a mother losing her life just to give another life. We need to care for both mother and child, not just as humans that deserved to be served and cared for, both also as very important sectors of our society,” Sulaik said during the groundbreaking rite for the pavilion. (Malu Cadelina Manar/MindaNews)