COTABATO CITY (October 23, 2025) — More than 400 marginalized Moro villagers underwent free ophthalmic and other surgical procedures during the October 14 to 16 medical missions of Bangsamoro regional officials and their health ministry in Kabacan town in Cotabato province.
Radio reports in Cotabato City on Thursday, October 23, stated that the beneficiaries of the three-day joint outreach activities of the office of Bangsamoro parliament member Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., their chief minister, Abdulrauf Macacua, the Bangsamoro health ministry and the Deseret Surgimed Hospital in Kabacan City are from Pagalungan and Montawal towns in Maguindanao del Sur, the nearby barangays in BARMM’s Special Geographic Area in Cotabato province and Cotabato City.
Local executives in the neighboring Pagalungan and Montawal towns told reporters on Thursday that most of their constituents who availed of the free medical services had cataract and pterygium in their eyes, removed via ophthalmic procedures by a team led by the physician-ophthalmologist Sinolinding, who is also overseeing the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in concurrent capacity.
The mayor of Pagalungan, Abdillah Mamasabulod, said on Thursday that he and his constituent-leaders are grateful to the regional officials and the medical team from the MoH-BARMM, physicians and officials of various peace-advocacy groups involved in the October 14 to 16 medical missions at the Deseret Surgimed Hospital.
“We can’t thank them enough. They gave comfort to so many indigent patients,” Mamasabulod said.
Physicians facilitated, during the three day mission, 50 minor surgeries, 25 major surgeries, including 19 cheiloplasty or cleft lip and palate surgeries, 70 cataract and pterygium removal procedures.
Sinolinding and members of the humanitarian action teams from his office in the parliament and the MoH-BARMM reported that they had also distributed then 220 free reading glasses to elderly villagers and provided more than a hundred more patients with medicines for various common illnesses.
Four Moro medical mission beneficiaries, Latip Laki, Saguira Kayambanga, Norhana Salangani and the barangay worker Sittie Nor Sailon, who underwent different major surgeries, separately told reporters they are grateful to the officials who organized the activity.
“We can’t afford the cost of undergoing such procedures in private institutions because our daily earnings are just enough for our daily needs,” Salangani said.
Many of the patients treated during the three-day medical mission are dependents of members of the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that have separate peace compacts with the national government and have representatives in the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament.
Besides Sinolinding, eight other physicians, Ismael Ammad, Amerah Oyod- Limjuco, Marjohn Caro, Edwin John Limjuco, Simer Paul Mariano, Sittie Naymah Pandi-Lamping and Nahara Batawi, were also involved the medical mission.
Photo shows the eight-year-old Azzam Sansaluna, who had congenital cataract treated via ophthalmic surgery during the three-day Bangsamoro government medical missions at the Deseret Surgimed Hospital.