MILF, Gov't Peace Office Forge Pact for BARMM Election Security

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Reconciliation and Unity and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front forged on Monday, August 31, a compact to cooperate in helping ensure peaceful September 14 elections in the Bangsamoro region. Officials of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division started distributing on Tuesday to their units in two Bangsamoro provinces in Central Mindanao and in the autonomous region’s Special Geographic Area the copies of the agreement, signed by Mel Sarmiento, presidential adviser on peace reconciliation and unity, and a ranking MILF official, Muhaquer Iqbal, during their meeting on Monday at the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte. The agreement compels both sides to support the peace and security initiatives of the Commission on Elections during the parliamentary polls on September 14 in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the first ever since BARMM’s creation in 2019. The current members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament are functioning as regional lawmakers based on separate appointments issued in March last year by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. Sarmiento and Iqbal affixed their signatures to the written agreement in the presence of Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, acting commander of the Western Mindanao command, and his two subordinates, Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog, acting commander of the 6th ID, and his deputy, Brig. Gen. Edgar Catu, and a representative from the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, Brig. Gen. Jemuel Siason. Officials of Comelec in BARMM and Army Major General Patricio Ruben Amata, chairman of the government’s Coordinating Committee on Cessation of Hostilities, which has a counterpart in the MILF, were also present in the symbolic event, witnessed by reporters and representatives from various peace advocacy entities supporting the peace overtures between the national government the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front. The MILF and the MNLF, which have separate peace agreements with the national government, both have appointed representatives to the BARMM parliament and are together overseeing the operations of certain ministries and support agencies in the Bangsamoro region. Cagara, who has jurisdiction over military units in BARMM’s five provinces and three cities, Bunayog and Siason separately told reporters at the sideline of Monday’s ceremony at Camp Darapanan that they appreciate the joint initiative of the OPAPRU, which is directly under the Office of the President and the MILF to help ensure peaceful and credible regional elections on September 14. “That can surely help make peaceful and orderly the conduct of the September 14 elections in our area of responsibility,” Bunayog said. There are MILF enclaves in BARMM’s Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur provinces and in eight Moro-dominated towns in the region’s Special Geographic Area in Cotabato, a component-province of Administrative Region 12, all under the jurisdiction of 6th ID. The 6th ID also covers the region’s capital, Cotabato City, where BARMM’s regional government center is located. Officials of four large, well-organized parties that have candidates for BARMM’s parliament, the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, the Bangsamoro Party of the MNLF, and the Bangsamoro People’s Party, had separately told reporters that they support the election security thrusts of the OPAPRU. “We appreciate that initiative of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Reconciliation and Unity. We don’t have a problem supporting that,” BARMM parliament member Naguib Sinarimbo, spokesperson of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, said. The president of the MNLF’s Bangsamoro Party, BARMM Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema, reiterated on Tuesday that their front’s September 2, 1996 truce with the national government, brokered by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of more than 50 Muslim states, obliges them to help secure all state activities in all areas where they have bastions recognized as “peace zones” by the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces.