Almost 1,200 families in Tawi-Tawi displaced by fire to get P25,000 each

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February 5, 2026 | 4:03pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has allocated a P25,000 cash grant for each of the 1,138 marginalized ethnic Sama and Tausug families whose stilt houses in the seaside Barangay Lamion in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi were razed by fire late Tuesday, February 3.

Tawi-Tawi Gov. Ysmael Sali, chairperson of their multi-sector Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said on Thursday that the BARMM government, the police and the military's Western Mindanao Command are helping them attend to the needs of the families displaced by the conflagration.

Radio reports on Thursday stated that emergency responders from the governor’s office, the municipal government of Bongao, a relief team under Tawi-Tawi’s representative to the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament, the lawyer Jet Lim, and provincial employees of the Ministry of Social Services and Development-BARMM have been providing the victims, now in evacuation sites, with essential provisions since Wednesday morning.

BARMM’s chief minister, Abdulrauf Macacua, told reporters on Thursday that they will provide each of the families displaced by the fire that hit Barangay Lamion a P25,000 relief support from their regional government’s Quick Response Fund.

"Officials and personnel of our health, social services and local government ministries in Tawi-Tawi shall serve them while they are in evacuation sites,”  Macacua, who is figurehead of the BARMM parliament, said.

He said he is thankful to the regional director of the BARMM police, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, and Army Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of WestMinCom, for supporting the Bangsamoro government’s humanitarian missions for the displaced Barangay Lamion residents .

A number of evacuees from Barangay Lamion are in a gymnasium in the campus of the Mindanao State University in Bongao, the capital town of Tawi-Tawi.

Macacua said three regional lawmakers, Lim, spokesperson of the BARMM parliament, the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., who is health minister of the Bangsamoro government in concurrent capacity, and Raissa Jajurie, are closely monitoring the health condition of children and the elderly Tausug and Sama evacuees from Barangay Lamion.

The parliament member Jajurie, who is also BARMM's social services minister, said their field workers have, since Wednesday, distributed to the fire victims some 10 tons of food provisions.

Employees in Tawi-Tawi of the MSSD-BARMM have set up tents in open fields in Bongao as temporary shelters for about half of the 1,138 families from Barangay Lamion.

A deputy floor leader in the BARMM parliament, the lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, had asked officials of relief agencies under the Office of the President and foreign humanitarian organizations operating in the country to support the Bangsamoro government’s relief initiatives for the thousands of evacuees from Barangay Lamion.

“Their situation is very saddening. We will greatly appreciate any support from outside of the autonomous region for our regional government’s relief operations for them,” Sinarimbo said.