BARMM officials want import of fuel from Brunei, Malaysia

John Unson - Philstar.com

COTABATO CITY — Bangsamoro regional officials are seeking Malacañang’s permission for their constituent traders to import petroleum products from Brunei and Malaysia, which are much cheaper than those purchased by big companies from the Middle East and sold across the country.

Members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro Parliament said on Wednesday, March 25, that importing petroleum products from Brunei and Malaysia could help sustain the economy of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and nearby southern areas. They expressed concern that rising gasoline and diesel prices, driven by the conflict in the Middle East, could otherwise stifle economic activity.

Four members of BARMM’s law-making body, practicing lawyers Ishak Mastura, Naguib Sinarimbo, parliament spokesperson Jet Lim and the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding Jr., told reporters on Wednesday morning that they are confident Brunei and Malaysia, as members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), would not hesitate to export petroleum products to BARMM. 

The OIC, a group of more than 50 Muslim nations, including wealthy petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, helped broker Malacañang’s Sept. 2, 1996, peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front and, subsequently, its 2014 truce with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro. The agreement paved the way for the 2019 replacement of then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more empowered BARMM.

Sinolinding, who concurrently oversees the Ministry of Health-BARMM, said that the operation of hospitals and municipal medical dispensaries in far-flung areas in the autonomous region, many of which rely on diesel-powered generators. could be severely affected once funds for fuel, now increasingly expensive, are depleted.

“It is now time for our national government and the Bangsamoro regional government to work out the importation of petroleum products from Brunei and Malaysia,” Sinolinding said.

Lim, who comes from BARMM’s Tawi-Tawi province near Malaysia and Brunei, said the regional government’s environment and natural resources and trade and investment ministries, together with the office of Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua, could coordinate with national government agencies, including the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, to develop a framework for importing petroleum products from the two OIC-member countries.

“We badly need that at this time when the Muslim, Christian and indigenous communities, the region’s business groups and our regional government are trying to make our fledgling economy grow and become at par with those in more progressive regions in Mindanao,” Lim said.

Mastura and Sinarimbo expressed optimism that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will grant approval to their proposed fuel importation plan.