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Law enforcement in the Island provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) received a big boost with the launching of a sub-regional police office in Patikul town in Sulu Province

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo personally cut the ceremonial ribbon on Monday putting to operations the ARMM police sub-regional office here, saying the field outfit is part of the Aquino government to enhance law enforcements in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces.
"As we all know, the police central regional headquarters is based in Maguindanao. There is a lot of difficulty responding to peace and security concerns for Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi if you are managing it from Parang in Maguindanao," Robredo said.

He said the “sub-regional police command in Sulu…will now handle the three provinces and we will put in it additional equipment and manpower to improve peace and security in the said provinces."

Robredo said the creation of sub-regional command pursued part of the agreement between the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces (AFP) that will compliment each other capabilities.

Sometime in January 2011, PNP top officials and Governors Sakur Tan of Sulu, Sadikul Sahali of Tawi-Tawi and Jum Akbar of Basilan, with the concurrence of the ARMM leadership conceived the idea of creating two police regional offices in the autonomous region – one for Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and Marawi City areas and another for the island provinces.

But because the idea would contravene the PNP regional structures, the sub-regional office was pushed through.

The police regional offices would be known as Armm Police Regional Office (Armm-PRO) A and Armm-PRO B. In the plan, Armm-PRO A will cover the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao and Marawi City while the provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will be under Armm-PRO B.

By Hader Glang