COTABATO CITY (September 28, 2025) —- Officials, led by Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, are now studying the fund requisites for the Cotabato provincial government’s public service activities in 2026, partly focused on the socio-economic empowerment of the culturally-pluralistic communities in the province.
Cotabato province has mixed Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities and is host to 63 barangays grouped together as the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, now covered by eight newly-established municipalities under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Taliño-Mendoza and her subordinate-officials in different offices and a member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, Joemar Cerebo, met at the capitol in Kidapawan City on Friday, September 26, where they discussed the intricacies of next year’s proposed provincial government budget.
A member of the provincial advisory council, Rey Melchor Ogatis, Cynthia Boston, who is provincial budget officer, and the former provincial cooperative development officer, Samuel Aquino, were also present in the conference that Taliño-Mendoza presided over.
The information team in Taliño-Mendoza’s office announced on Sunday, September 28, that among the concerns discussed by provincial officials then were the maximum continuation in 2026 of the provincial government’s social welfare, public affairs assistance, economy and tourism programs and youth, sports, information and communications, Muslim and indigenous community development initiatives.
Mendoza’s office has not closed its doors to Moro residents in the eight BARMM towns in her province who are in need of basic services even if their barangays are now under the jurisdiction of the Bangsamoro regional government.
The mayors of the eight BARMM towns in Cotabato province — Pahamuddin, Kadayangan, Nabalawag, Old Kaabakan, Kapalawan, Malidegao, Tugunan and Ligawasan — are staunch supporters of Taliño-Mendoza’s peace and development initiatives supporting Malacañang’s diplomatic overtures with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that have separate peace compacts with the national government.
MNLF’s chairman, Muslimin Sema, who is also BARMM labor and employment minister, and Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua, who is chief of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, are both persistent in acknowledging and appreciating, when they are with reporters and whenever in peace dialogues, Taliño-Mendoza’s not having disconnected her administration and all of her constituent-mayors, in terms of delivery of basic services, from the Moro communities in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area in Cotabato province.