THE Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), the country's poorest region, is seeking a budget of P12.6 billion for 2010, officials said last week.

Next year's proposed budget is higher by at least P3 billion than the P9.6 billion recommendation set by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

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The 2010 proposed budget by Armm executives is up by almost 30 percent or P2.9 billion than the present fiscal year's allocation of P9.7 billion.

Armm Governor Datu Zaldy U. Ampatuan and his cabinet members presented the 2010 budget to the DBM in a hearing last week in Davao City.

"The substantial increase [from the recommendation set by the Budget department] would be crucial to support key programs on health, education, poverty reduction and social services," Ampatuan said.

"The region will also need the additional budget to finance the construction of more farm- to-market roads and other vital infrastructures,” the governor added.

The autonomous Muslim region straddles the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Despite millions of dollars in aid from foreign countries in the last decades, the region still waddles in poverty.

Budget Undersecretary Mario L. Relampagos, who headed the DBM team, urged the autonomous region to substantiate its higher budget proposal.

"The request for budgetary increase must be accompanied by performance based projects," Relampagos was quoted as saying in a statement.

Based on Armm's budget proposal, around 70 percent of the allocation would go to personnel services or salaries of workers, 12 percent for capital outlay and the rest for maintenance and other operating expenses of the regional government.

Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, Armm solicitor general, said the regional government will "also be giving high priority to the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs)."

"The regional government would need sufficient funds to respond to the immediate relief and rehabilitation needs in the conflict-affected areas," she said.

A report published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre has shown that the country ranks number one worldwide in the total number of persons displaced by conflicts last year.

Some 600,000 individuals in Mindanao, a vast majority residing in the Armm, were forced to flee their homes to avoid the clashes between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that erupted in August 2008, the report said.

Hostilities erupted anew between the parties after the foiled signing of the controversial memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain.

Disgruntled MILF commanders Ameril Umbra Kato, Abdullah "Bravo" Macapaar and Alim Pangalian Solaiman headed attacks on various civilian communities in Mindanao in dismay to the botched signing of the ancestral domain pact.

The Bangsamoro homeland deal, which was eventually declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, would have given the MILF wider political and economic powers in the southern Philippines. (BSS)