DBM to release P59M for BTA members’ salaries

The Department of Budget and Management is set to release P59 million to cover the salaries of 82 Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) members for the second half of the year, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Tuesday.

Last month, BTA member Laisa Masuhud Alamia said the transition panel and their staff have yet to receive their salaries since the BARMM was established five months ago. 

Panelo said the delay in the release of BTA funds, due to the reenacted budget, has been discussed during the Cabinet meeting Monday night.

The BTA remained largely unfunded and had been making do with the leftover budget of the abolished ARMM’s Regional Legislative Assembly, said Alamia.

But she said the money would not be enough to cover the salaries of the BTA members and their staff, and the workshops and other meetings for parliament work.

During the Cabinet meeting, Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unification (PAPRU) Carlito Galvez Jr. informed the Cabinet on the activities of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) normalization and other BTA activities.

He updated the Cabinet on the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), such as the appointment of leadership and heads of ministries.

Galvez also updated them on the design of a memorandum of agreement with the Commission on Higher Education to improve access to education in BARMM, and the Brigada Eskwela with Department of Education.

The ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law in February paved the way for the creation of the BARMM and abolished the old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The BARMM includes Cotabato City, 63 barangays in the municipalities of  Aleosan, Carmen, Kabacan, Midsayap, Pigkawayan and Pikit in North Cotabato. It has expanded land and water jurisdiction, fiscal autonomy, and increased the share in national government resources. —VDS, GMA News