BARMM mulls setting up anti-corruption office

DAVAO CITY - The Bangsamoro Government is keen on putting up an office to investigate graft and corruption cases filed against public officers and employees.

In a statement on Monday, March 1, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) said Parliament Bill No. 67 creating the Bantay-Korupsyon Office was filed in the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Parliament last Feb. 23.

The said bill was authored by Member of Parliament (MP) Mohammad S. Yacob.

Yacob also said that “(t)he bill shall be an effective deterrent and avenue for the path to a graft and corruption free Bangsamoro Government.”

The said office is eyed to be the primary authority to probe complaints “involving graft and corruption against any public officer and employees of the Bangsamoro Government and its constituent local government units, as well as their co-principals, accomplices, and accessories from the private sector, if any.”

“The (Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim) believes that only through moral governance can our government be truly set in the teachings of Islam that is to enjoin good and forbidding evil,” Yacob said on the bill’s explanatory note.

He said moral governance is the “set of rules, practices, and processes completely devoid of all the evils of graft and corruption, and explicitly driven by the moral principles of utmost dedication, devotion, honesty, justice, and integrity.”

“In order to guarantee moral governance and the fight against corruption, it is imperative that the BTA Parliament pass this act into law creating a special office under the Office of the Chief Minister that will oversee this effort,” he added.