COTABATO CITY (MindaNews / 20 April) — The Bangsamoro government has signed a deal with a local airline company to open an inter-island route aimed to hasten travel between island towns and provinces in the region.
Bangsamoro Board of Investments (BBOI) Chairperson Mohammad Pasigan, in a phone interview Saturday, said Bangsamoro Airways, which is operated by Federal Airways Inc., will launch its maiden flight on April 24 from Cotabato City to Zamboanga City and Jolo, Sulu and vice versa.
The ‘Bulilit’ plane will carry six to ten passengers, including the pilots.
“These are called Bulilit trips mainly to cater to government officials, medical supplies and investors who are deeply challenged by the long travel time and routes when they plan to visit Island towns and communities or deliver services,” he said.
He said these routes will reduce the number of days spent in the Island towns as the Cotabato-Tawi Tawi-Cotabato flights of Philippine Air Lines are only available on Thursdays and Mondays.
The Bangsamoro Airways is expected to add routes to Sibutu and Mapun towns in Tawi-Tawi depending on how the first three months of test operations would go.
It is also planning to open routes to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia after one year if things will work out well.
Pasigan said the opening of more flights will bring more investors to the autonomous region, resulting in continuous growth in investments.
“We will now leave the next step to the transportation ministry on how they will arrange the next move to fully operationalize or expand the inter-island connectivity airways,” he added.
According to BBOI’s report, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) recorded a total of P3.7 billion of investments as of April, already surpassing the office’s 2024 target of P2.6 billion.
The investments went to Islamic banking, tourism, agriculture, marine, and industrial sectors, creating 1,155 job opportunities across the region.
BARMM passed the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act, a law that reduces corporate income tax rates, to lure investors to the region.
Pasigan urged the people in BARMM to maintain peace in the region to attract more investors. (Ferdinandh B. Cabrera/MindaNews)
