SULU (Mindanao Examiner / Sept. 6, 2013) – Sulu Gov. Totoh Tan has presided over the 5th Sulu Area Coordinating Center Network Conference in Patikul town to discuss various projects and programs with different stakeholders in the southern province, officials said.
Fazlur Rahman Abdulla, Executive Director of the Sulu Area Coordinating Center, said Tan discussed three major issues that need immediate actions – the problems on electricity supply, education programs and how to improve more the general peace and order condition in the province.
“Governor Tan has discussed these things with the stakeholders and we have come up with an action plan based on all recommendations of various groups and we are working more to further improve those that were in the agenda,” Abdulla said told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said Tan is the chairman of the Area Coordinating Center which coordinates Sulu’s various nongovernmental agencies, military and police authorities, emergency services and other organizations and serves as an inter-agency communication network.
Abdulla said more than 200 people participated in the recent meeting and mostly representatives of various provincial and national government agencies, the police and military authorities, academe, student and civil society organizations, women sector and provincial and municipal officials, including from the US military which is active of humanitarian and development projects in Sulu.
The Sulu Area Coordinating Center, built during the time of then Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan and now provincial vice governor, is a facility established as a proactive, reactive, and post conflict mechanism to address various concerns at regional and local levels of governance and to solve problems of coordination and response.
Abdulla said the Area Coordinating Center functions both as a system and as a council for planning, integrating, directing, supervising, and implementing line-up government programs and projects particularly on political, socioeconomic, cultural, religious, development, security and information issues.
The province now has a total of 20 Area Coordinating Centers – one for each of Sulu’s 19 towns and the central headquarters in Patikul. (Mindanao Examiner)
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