COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Amid reports that the President will soon sign into law the legislation deferring the Aug. 8, 2011 regional polls and allowing him to install officers-in-charge (OICs) to lead the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), stakeholders have appealed for prudence in the selection of OICs to fulfil the Palace-touted reform agenda for the region.

The appellants coming from the ARMM’s academic, religious, traditional, political, and business sectors have aired anxiety that the fate of the so-called “failed autonomy” in the region “depends largely on the quality of OICs” the President will choose in a “very critical” process.

The measure passed on June 8 by the Senate to synchronize the ARMM polls with the 2013 mid-term elections was being readied for official transmission to the Palace for signing into law by “end of this month,” according to Presidential Political Adviser Ronald Llamas.

Once signed into law, the President would then have a free-hand in selecting OICs for ARMM governor, vice governor, and the region’s 24-seat legislature who will takeover their elected predecessors whose terms of office expire on September 30, legal experts said.

Some lawyers said they are just waiting for the Presidential signing and official publication of the measure before filing petitions questioning its constitutionality before the Supreme Court.

As this developed, names of possible choices as appointee for ARMM OIC-governor have floated.

These include former Party-list Rep. Mujiv Hataman, retired Marine Gen. Ben Dolorfino, former ARMM Gov. Zacaria Candao, Moro National Liberation Front leader Alex Lagawa, and Mayors Abdulkarim Langkuno and Tocao Mastura of Paglat and Sultan Kudarat towns in Maguindanao, respectively.

The name of ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo has also been mentioned as belonging to an alleged Palace “shortlist” of prospects for OIC to the top regional post. He, however, has denied aspiring for OIC.

But Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, in a press conference here Wednesday, described him as “well-versed” and “articulate” worthy of entrusting a break in ARMM governance.

In another development, some 500 military troopers swooped down on Thursday the crowded Delta Bridge here, not for their usual combat operation but to join civilian volunteers in a bayanihan-like campaign to get rid of a huge chunk of water hyacinths that has clogged the river path under the bridge and aggravated the flooding in this city and nearby Maguindanao towns.

But due to the magnitude of the accumulated aquatic plants that spans around 20 hectares in diameter and eight kilometers in length, accompanying military, civilian, and church officials called on other sectors, to include even rebels, to join the voluntary convergence in mechanized and manual clearing of the bridge’s passage way.

Belonging to the paradigm-shifting Army’s 6th Infantry Division led now by Brig. Gen. Rey Ardo, 470 military personnel wielded spades, hoes, and bolos provided by the Office of the Regional Governor (ORG) of the ARMM, whose artery of funds began to flow anew after the Court of Appeals lifted its freeze order on it Wednesday.

Ardo told newsmen that his troops’ operations will continue “without let-up until all the water way is cleared” along the Delta Bridge, whose structural foundations are equally under threat of collapse by the continued influx of the aquatic plants from Ligawasan Marsh.

The marsh is in the border of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, and North Cotabato provinces.

The soldiers’ deployment was sought by ARMM acting Gov. Ansaruddin A. Adiong through Sinarimbo following the declaration of a state of calamity in the autonomous region Tuesday afternoon.

Sinarimbo met Ardo a day after the Court of Appeals issued a resolution lifting its freeze order on the funds of the ORG with the Land Bank branch here in what was perceived to be a “blunder” in the plunder case filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council against suspected ill-gotten assets and bank accounts of indicted political Ampatuan family members and allies.

Four of a fleet of airboats donated earlier by the Australian government were used to shuttle the volunteer-soldiers and water lilies separated from the huge chunk along the river.

Sinarimbo and Ardo were joined in supervising Thursday’s convergent operation by Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development (PTFMRBRD), and ARMM’s Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Director Loreto Rirao.