Bangsamoro hospital launches pro-poor projects

August 12, 2026 | 6:51pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Officials launched on Tuesday, August 11, new service facilities in the Bangsamoro Regional Hospital and Medical Center (BRHMC) in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao del Sur as a highlight of the commemoration of the first anniversary of the institution. 

The BRHMC was launched on Aug. 11, 2025 and has since been providing continuing medical services to patients from the Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous non-Moro communities in the Bangsamoro region's adjoining Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces and Cotabato City.

Hospital chief Mohammad Ariff Baguindali, Bangsamoro Deputy Health Minister Minister Dr. Zul Qarneyn Abas and two members of the regional parliament, the engineer Baintan Adil-Ampatuan and the lawyer Sittie Fahanie Uy-Oyod, together led the inaugural opening of the BRHMC’s newly-established Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and Karamah Social Hygiene Clinic as part of Tuesday’s ceremony.

The BRHMC is located inside the compound of the Integrated Provincial Health Office Maguindanao (IPHO-Maguindanao) in Shariff Aguak, one of the 24 towns in Maguindanao del Sur, a component-province of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The physician Baguindali, who is also overseeing the IPHO-Maguindanao in concurrent capacity, had told reporters at the sidelines of the event that the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Karamah Social Hygiene Clinic are meant to maximize the services of the BRHMC for the local Muslim, Christian and indigenous non-Moro communities.

Baguindali, Abas, and the two lawmakers in BARMM’s 80-seat parliament, Adil-Ampatuan and Uy-Uyod, also launched during Tuesday’s symbolic celebration of first founding anniversary of BRHMC its administration's PhilHealth Yakap and PhilHealth Gamot humanitarian outreach projects, meant to hasten hospital services to patients who are members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.

Baguindali's office and the Ministry of Health-BARMM are cooperating in facilitating applications for PhilHealth membership of villagers in Maguindanao del Sur. 

“The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and these two PhilHealth-related thrusts will surely enhance our services to patients of our hospital,” Baguindali said.

The BRHMC was jointly established last year by Baguindali and other physicians in the IPHO-Maguindanao, the office of Regional Health Minister Kadil Sinolinding Jr. and members of the 80-member Bangsamoro parliament, among them the chairperson of its health committee, Hashemi Dilangalen, who is also a physician, Uy-Uyod and Adil-Ampatuan.

The physician-ophthalmologist Sinolinding, also a member of the Bangsamoro parliament, said on Wednesday that he and his subordinates in the regional health ministry appreciate the improvements done in the BRHMC, within just 12 months, by Baguindali and his subordinate-medical workers and employees of its different administrative divisions.