By CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS, MindaNews
COTABATO CITY – OIC Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), recently proclaimed winner in the ARMM gubernatorial race, has vowed to lower the double-digit poverty incidence in the country’s poorest region, to “single-digit during our term.”
Among 17 regions nationwide, the five-province, two-city ARMM is the country’s poorest, posting 46.9% according to the National Statistical Coordination Board’s “First Semester Per Capita Threshold and Poverty incidence Among Families, by region and provinces, 2006, 2009 and 2012” released on April 23 this year.
ARMM comprises Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao in the mainland, the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-tawi and the cities of Marawi and Lamitan.
Nationwide, the NSCB said, “22 out of 100 families were estimated to be poor in the first semester of 2012 with the average poverty incidence at 22.3%. In the ARMM, the figure is more than twice at 46.9% or 47 out of 100 families.
In Lanao del Sur, the figure is thrice the national average at 68.9% and Maguindanao at 57.8%. Basilan’s poverty incidence is at 32.5%, Sulu’s is 30.4% while Tawi-tawi’s is 20.8%.
“Actually, we are the poorest because of the two provinces but not the entire region,” Hataman told MindaNews shortly after the flag retreat late Friday afternoon at the ARMM’s main office.
Proclaimed earlier that day as winner in the ARMM gubernatorial race along with his running mate Haround Alrashid Lucman, Hataman attended the flag retreat, a weekly activity he enforced in the ARMM. Friday’s retreat ended with a raffle of, among others, cooking pots, rice cookers, rice dispensers, sacks of rice and brown envelopes containing cash.
He said the three island provinces are no longer on the list of poorest provinces and only the two mainland provinces are their problem.
“Challenge ito sa amin” (This is a challenge to us), he said.