Health workers set for BARMM election emergency operations

May 10, 2025 | 7:22pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Officials have organized large emergency reaction groups, led by physicians and equipped with ambulances, for deployment in potential flashpoint areas in Moro-dominated areas during Monday’s electoral exercise.

The teams shall operate under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and its provincial offices in BARMM’s five provinces.

Regional officials, among them Health Minister Kadil Sinolinding Jr., were quoted in radio reports in Cotabato City on Saturday, May 10, as saying that the teams shall work closely with Army and police medical units and emergency responders from the municipal city and provincial governments in the autonomous region.

The MOH-BARMM emergency response teams shall work on a 24-hour basis starting Sunday morning and until the conduct of elections in areas tagged as “election hotspots” by the police, the military and the Commission on Elections are over.

“We have assigned doctors and nurses to these contingents,” Sinolinding told reporters.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said he has directed all city and provincial police directors in BARMM to support the operation of the health ministry’s election emergency reaction teams.