Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) Regional Director Joel Goltiao has readied a battalion of policemen to secure the area where Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan is set to deliver his state-of-the-region-address (Sora) Wednesday.

Soldiers belonging to the Army's 6th Infantry Division were also deployed in the area.

The Armm governor is set to deliver his speech at the 32-hectare Armm complex in Cotabato City.

Hundreds of mayors from different towns, six governors, and several dignitaries from different foreign-funding institutions and non-government organizations (NGOs) are expected to attend Ampatuan's Sora.

Ampatuan said he would pay homage to the late Basilan Representative Wahab Akbar who was one of those killed in the blast that rocked the building of the House of Representatives.

The speech, he said, is focused on how his administration managed the region for the past year and his plans for the coming years.

The region, created on August 1, 1989 through Republic Act No. 6734 otherwise known as the Organic Act, is still experiencing economic woes.

But the region, he said, is coping with problems on low literacy rates, lack of livelihood opportunities, poor delivery of basic services, through the help of many foreign-funding institutions, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAid).

For more than a decade after the signing of the peace accord between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the region is still the poorest in the country.

"My speech will not just focus on how far has my administration gone with its local and foreign-funded socio-economic projects in the Armm, but also on how we shall go about with more maneuvers aimed at converting the region into a progressive community of mixed Muslim and non-Muslim residents," he said. 

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