Members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Parliament held its 2nd regular session Tuesday, June 16, 2020. (Zoom Screen Photo)
COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Parliament officially opened its 2nd regular session on Tuesday, June 16 following the minimum health standards set by the Bangsamoro Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) on Covid-19 in holding events not exceeding with 50% of actual capacity of the venue.
Out of 80 Members of Parliament (MP), only 69 were present during the session. 52 of them physically responded to the roll call, while the other 17 responded via video conference.
In his ceremonial speech, BTA Parliament Speaker Atty. Ali Pangalian M. Balindong cited that amidst the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) global pandemic crisis, if we hope for a better country, region, community, and a better future for the people, “they can do a lot more as leaders”, referring to fellow Members of the Parliament and the leaders of the Bangsamoro region in general.
“This is what governance is all about. We have to keep for ourselves exacting standards, constantly reflecting on and making sense of what is happening around us,” Balindong stressed.
Balindong said the Bangsamoro region is more fortunate as we face this pandemic even the country has been on lockdown for more than two months, with a lot less number of cases of infection of the deadly Covid-19 virus compared to the National Capital Region, which has become ground zero of the pandemic here in the Philippines.
Following their achievements for more than a year, Balindong said there are so much more to be done and they cannot just rest on what have been accomplished so far.
“The Bangsamoro is a fortune in itself. We just have to make it more a blessing to our people. We have to continuously and in fact fast track the work of completing the governance mechanism. We have to vigorously identify industries and develop more industries, show the world what we have and pride ourselves of what we can do. We have been doing that, but we can do more. Be thankful for what we have,” Balindong emphasized.
In his message, Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim lauded the Parliament for its continuing legislative work amidst the Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
“Our session today marks the Parliament’s preparedness to embrace the new normal in order to assure that our mandate gets fulfilled despite of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic,” Ebrahim said.
Ebrahim also mentioned about the Bangsamoro government’s efforts in battling Covid-19 as a “testament to its commitment to prioritize the welfare of the people”.
“The main component of our Covid-19 response is putting the people, especially the most affected families, at the core of our policies and programs,” Ebrahim stressed. (GALao, BTA Parliament)