The Ministry of the Interior and Local Government in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (MILG-BARMM) is building a PHP25 million modern town hall to better serve the residents of the remote municipality of Turtle Islands, Tawi-Tawi.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, MILG minister, said in a statement Saturday that the municipal hall aims to improve the services of local government units and ensure that moral governance is felt even in the farthest town of BARMM.

Sinarimbo said distance is not a hindrance in constructing a town hall in such a remote area.

The municipality of Turtle Islands is located within the Sulu Sea at the southwestern tip of the country, at the edge of the international treaty limits separating the Philippines and Malaysia.

“Despite its distance, we are constructing a municipal hall for the farthest municipality to ensure that governance is also felt there,” Sinarimbo said.

The town hall, he said, would not only serve as a help desk for the government’s bureaucracy and implement policies for the betterment of its constituents but would also provide symbolic functions in the community.

It will serve as a venue for holding local government business, implementing government services, and conducting public-related assistance and activities in offices or council meeting rooms.

Turtle Islands is a fifth-class municipality of Tawi-Tawi with a population of 5,683, as of the 2020 census, and is a protected and natural breeding ground for green sea turtles.

The municipality consists of six small islands – Taganak, Baguan, Langaan, Boan, Lihiman, and the Great Bakungan. (PNA)