ARMM should continue moving on–and moving up

THE Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is “a failed experiment,” de facto president BS Aquino said when he was starting his propaganda, financial, political, and diplomatic campaign to fast track the creation of a Bangsamoro substate desired by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to subsume the ARMM.

It was and is an unfair characterization. In the 25 years and four months of the ARMM’s existence (its silver anniversary was in November last year), it has fared better than some provinces and regions of the Philippines within their first 25 years. Yes, MNLF Chairman Emeritus Nur Misuari and his successors as ARMM regional governor found it difficult to run the autonomous region and failed to turn it and its provinces into shining models of good governance and development. But managing their autonomous region was made doubly hard by the Philippine central government, which never did its proper duty of supplying it with the correct amount of its inadequate budget on time.