COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The governance of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is now bent finally on transferring its regional seat to Parang, Maguindanao from this city – its temporary seat for the past 20 years.

ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo said the ARMM’s Regional Planning and Development Office has been directed to chart the requirements and mechanisms for the development of a prospected site in Parang, a coastal town hosting the Polloc Freeport and the Regional Police Office headquarters.

The ARMM’s Regional Legislative Assembly passed in 1995 an edict fixing the permanent seat of the autonomous governance in such progressive town, but past regional leaderships failed to carry out the mandate for varied reasons ranging from lack of funds to political compromises.

Sinarimbo said the administration of ARMM acting Gov. Ansaruddin Alonto Adiong pushed for the realization of the 20-year-old plan after the Sarmiento family has donated part of its 300-hectare land in Parang to accommodate the new regional government center.

“It’s not a far-fetched idea to transfer the regional center to where the regional government has total control and leeway for improvements because Republic Act 9054 calls for ARMM to have its permanent seat,” Sinarimbo said.

This city, the provisional seat of the ARMM, remains part of Region-12 after majority of its residents rejected twice its inclusion in the autonomous area in separate plebiscites.

The current regional complex has been inherited by the ARMM from the defunct autonomous regions established under the Marcos administration.

Sinarimbo said their administration’s thrust is “to put together the administrative center of ARMM, the international seaport which is already in place at the Polloc Freeport in Parang, as well as an international airport which will connect ARMM with other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries.”

He said their perspective of the proposed ARMM seat has been inspired by Malaysia in shifting its government center to the vast district of Putrajaya in Kuala Lumpur.

He said the absence of a bigger airport to accommodate international flights in the ARMM hampers international and domestic connectivity of the autonomous region, adding that the existing Awang Domestic Airport in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao, could no longer expand its runway.

Sinarimbo’s disclosure of the transfer plan was triggered by questions from the media on their reaction to the persistent opposition of the present city government leadership to physical facelifts along the Gutierrez Avenue, an access road donated to the ARMM’s predecessor and has long been maintained by the regional government.

City Mayor Japal Guiani Jr. and his sister City Administrator Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi had sounded off verbally and in writing their objection to the putting in place of ground-fixed concrete flower vases, saying that crime-prone individuals may place explosives on such structures to “harm VIPs visiting the ARMM.”

Sinarimbo and other ARMM officials laughed off the argument, citing hundreds of even bigger flower vases mushrooming along the highways of Malaysia including a street leading to a huge building where the 56-nation Organization of Islamic Conference once held a ministerial meet.