ARMM: Stodgy, ill-starred stats

NO SAFE WATER and toilets in homes mostly not powered by electricity. Far fewer doctors and health facilities care for their babies and mothers. They die up to 10 years earlier than most Filipinos across the nation. Yet still, the people of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have had to flee their homes incessantly on account of intermittent clashes between soldiers and armed groups. ARMM, home to 3,256,140 Filipinos as of the 2010 census, is a stodgy record of ill-starred stats. As of 2011, of the 455 waterless municipalities in the country, 94 are in the five provinces of ARMM, according to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies’ repot titled "Water Financing Programs in the Philippines: Are We Making Progress?” These 94 waterless towns of ARMM come from the region’s five provinces – 36 in Lanao del Sur, 20 in Maguindanao, 16 in Sulu, 11 in Tawi-Tawi, and 11 in Basilan. More detailed official data as of 2003 showed that 8 of 10 people in Tawi-Tawi, 7 of 10 in Basilan and Sulu, five of 10 in Maguindanao and 4 of 10 in Lanao del Sur did not have access to improved water sources. The number of households with access to safe water supply as of 2007 revealed that of Marawi City’s 26,009 households, only 5,064 have access to safe water supply (19%), and only 13,400 or half the households have sanitary toilets. Electricity also remains a scarce public good in ARMM. While 40 percent of Lanao del Sur’s population had power as of 2007, people located elsewhere in ARMM continue to linger in the dark, literally. Up to 63 percent of the people in Basilan; 76 percent in Maguindanao; and 83 percent in both Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, hade no electricity as of that year. By another index, the number of rural health units or RHUs in the nation as of 2011, ARMM fares just as poorly. Of the 2,314 RHUs in the Philippines, only 119 are in ARMM — 42 in Lanao del Sur, 33 in Maguindanao, 19 in Sulu, 13 in Basilan, and 12 in Tawi-Tawi, according to the Department of Health. The number of district and provincial hospitals in ARMM presents a picture just as lean and bad — the Philippines has 584 district hospitals and 89 provincial hospitals. However, the slice of the pie that goes to ARMM is a pithy 24 district hospitals and two provincial hospitals, or one each in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. None exists as yet for the provinces of Maguindanao, Basilan, and Lanao del Sur. In terms of the latest infant mortality rate data, the National Statistical Coordination Board reported that in the Philippines, an average 23 babies per 100,000 population die each year before reaching age 5 as of 2006. The figure for ARMM was much more at 33. The proportion of children under a year old who had been immunized against measles stood at 81 percent across the nation in 2003. The ARMM figure is much lower at 76.9. When mothers give birth, attendance and care by skilled health personnel would be most safe and ideal, In the Philippines as of 2006, seven in 10 or 70.1 percent of mothers giving birth got this service as of 2006. In ARMM, only 49.1 percent or less than five in 10 got the service. But the sorriest number of all pertains to the life expectancy of men and women in ARMM. As of the latest 2000 data, across the nation, Filipino males live up to 66.11 years, and Filipino females, up to 71.64 years, according to the Philippine Statistical Authority. In ARMM, Filipinos die five to 10 years younger, however. Life expectancy among males in the ARMM provinces is much, much shorter. In Maguindanao, life expectancy is at 60.3 years for males, and 61.65 for females; in Sulu, 56.97 and 58.53; in Tawi-Tawi, 56.13 and 57.5; in Lanao del Sur, 61.87 and 62.74; and in Basilan, 61.and 67.43. As of the 2010 census, the National Statistics Office said ARMM’s 3.25-million population consists of 293,322 people in Basilan, 933,260 in Lanao del Sur, 944,718 in Maguindanao, 718,290 in Sulu, and 366,550 in Tawi-Tawi.// — With research and reporting by Fernando Cabigao Jr. and Jaileen F. Jimeno, PCIJ, March 2015