BARMM parliament member named regional health minister
Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim designated on May 6 regional lawmaker Kadil Sinolinding, Jr. as health minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Photo Courtesy: BARMM/ Sun Times Philippines
COTABATO CITY — The top official of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) designated on Monday a member of the 80-seat regional parliament, who is also a popular physician-ophthalmologist, as health minister.
Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim designated on May 6 regional lawmaker Kadil Sinolinding, Jr. as health minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). A copy of the order circulated on Facebook, and reported by different broadcast outfits here late Wednesday.
Sinolinding replaced physician Rizaldy Piang, who was installed by the BARMM leadership as chief of the Buluan District Hospital in Buluan, the capital town of Maguindanao del Sur.
“I’m confident that Member of Parliament Doctor Sinolinding can efficiently manage our Ministry of Health,” Ebrahim said on Thursday.
An eye surgeon trained in India, Sinolinding, who started as municipal health officer of the adjoining Pagalungan and Montawal towns in Maguindanao del Sur in the 1990s, had served as regional secretary of the Department of Health in the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
The then 27-year ARMM got replaced with a more administrative and politically empowered BARMM via a plebiscite in 2019 as part of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro between Malacañang and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Sinolinding, most known in BARMM as “the doctor in the parliament,” and his team of volunteers and benefactors had treated 3,267 poor Moro and non-Moro people suffering from cataract and pterygium in humanitarian outreach missions in different parts of the autonomous region after he was appointed member of the BARMM parliament by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in August 2022.
He told reporters on Thursday morning that he shall do his best to manage well the MoH-BARMM with the help of its officials and rank-and-file employees. (John Unson)
About Author
