Cotabato province earned P1.1-billion revenue surplus in 2025

March 28, 2026 | 5:21pm

KORONADAL CITY, Philippines — The provincial government of Cotabato has generated a P1.1 billion revenue surplus in 2025 and officials are expecting bigger tax collections this year via extensive initiatives supported by the Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities.

Mayors in different Cotabato towns and regional officials in the Bangsamoro region were quoted in radio reports on Saturday, March 28, as saying that they were impressed with the Cotabato provincial government’s having earned P1.1 billion revenue surplus last year, as revealed by Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza in her state of the province address in Kidapawan City on Tuesday morning.

“Also fascinating for us was what our governor clearly stated then that our provincial government has no debt, zero debt, with any bank or funding institution,” said Mayor Rolando Sacdalan of the now markedly progressive Midsayap town in the first district of Cotabato.

Ranking officials of the Department of the Interior and Local Government in Regions 9, 10 and 12 and in the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao confirmed to reporters on Saturday that there are municipal, city and provincial governments covered by their offices that are paying, on a periodic basis, for big loans from banks that were spent for the procurement of heavy equipment and costly infrastructure projects.

BARMM officials, among them the regional lawmakers Mohammad Kelly Antao and Kadil Sinolinding, Jr. and their chief minister, Abdulrauf Macacua, separately told reporters on Saturday that they will embark on activities that can help boost the revenue-generation campaign of Mendoza’s administration in predominantly Moro areas in her province.

There are eight newly-created Bangsamoro towns that are under the BARMM government but are inside the territory of Cotabato, one of the four provinces in Administrative Region 12.

Antao, a traditional Moro community leader, and the physician-ophthalmologist Sinolinding, who is concurrently managing the Ministry of Health-BARMM, said they also appreciate Mendoza's having insinuated in her SOPA her commitment to foster peace among the Muslims, Christians and indigenous non-Moro residents in the 17 towns in Cotabato and in Kidapawan City, the provincial capital.

“While we are with the BARMM government, which is an autonomous government entity separate from Region 12, we can help her office forge ahead with its peacebuilding and socio-economic activities in the surroundings of the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area in Cotabato province,” Sinolinding said.

Macacua and Antao separately said they can also help Mendoza’s office address community concerns in towns in Cotabato where there are state-recognized domains of the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The MNLF and the MILF, which have separate peace agreements with Malacañang, both have representatives in BARMM’s 80-seat regional parliament, whose figurehead is Macacua.