Cotabato City Leaders, Residents Pledge Support for Peaceful BARMM Polls

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local residents and community leaders are optimistic about peaceful and orderly Bangsamoro regional parliamentary polls in all of the 37 barangays in this city, the region's capital and home to the BARMM government center. The territory of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao encompasses five provinces, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, and three cities, Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where BARMM’s 32-hectare regional government center is located. Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog, acting commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said on Friday, September 11, that leaders of the Muslim and Christian and indigenous Teduray communities in Cotabato City and their mayor, Bruce Matabalao, had assured him of their support for efforts of the Commission on Elections to ensure safe and credible September 14 BARMM elections in their 37 barangays. Bunayog and Brig. Gen. Jemuel Siason, deputy director for administration of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters on Friday that community support can boost the joint police, military and Comelec’s election security thrusts during the September 14 first-ever BARMM regional parliamentary polls. Matabalao, now a second-term mayor and chairperson of the Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, whose members include leaders of the local Muslim and Christian religious sectors, told reporters on Friday that his office and all the 37 barangay governments under its jurisdiction are to cooperate in supporting the election security efforts of PRO-BAR, the 6th ID and the Comelec. All of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City are being secured together by the Cotabato City Police Office, under Col. Jibin Bongcayao, personnel of the 6th Marine Battalion of the Navy’s 1st Marine Brigade, which are both under 6th ID’s operational control, and troops from units of the division, whose headquarters in Camp Siongco in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte is less than 10 kilometers away. “Me and my constituent-barangay officials are prepared to help ensure peaceful and credible elections in the city. We are not candidates for the parliament. We can do that with utmost neutrality. It is our bounden duty, as public servants, to do that,” Matabalao said. Army and police officials, representatives from the Comelec and other government agencies and local executives crafted a compact, during a meeting at Camp Siongco on Wednesday, compelling them to help ensure peaceful Bangsamoro parliamentary polls in all towns in Maguindanao del Norte on September 14. Cotabato City, where offices of all the ministries and support agencies of the BARMM government are located, is inside Maguindanao del Norte province. There are election hotspots in Maguindanao del Norte’s 12 towns, some of which are locked in bloody family feuds, called “rido” in the local vernaculars, involving big Moro clans that have members who are elected municipal and barangay officials known for keeping firearms both for protection and as status symbols. The 6th ID covers all of the 12 towns in Maguindanao del Norte, where some barangays were scenes of hostilities involving partisans during past synchronized local, congressional and national electoral exercises. The division also has battalions in Maguindanao del Sur province and in the eight newly-established towns in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, which is under the BARMM government, but are in Cotabato, a component-province of Region 12. Wednesday’s security dialogue at Camp Siongco was jointly presided over by Bunayog, Presidential Assistant for Bangsamoro Transformation Noel Baraceros of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity, Siason from the PRO-BAR and Maguindanao del Norte Gov. Tucao Mastura. Bunayog, Mastura, Siason and other government officials signed then, in the presence of reporters, an agreement, printed on a tarpaulin, binding them to jointly support the Comelec’s peace and security thrusts on September 14. In a meeting with reporters after the event, Bunayog said their paramount concern is to enable voters in Cotabato City and all towns inside 6th ID’s territory to freely vote for their chosen candidates for seats in their parliamentary districts and the nominees, by blocs, of different parties, to the 80-seat BARMM parliament. “Every voter must be able to exercise the right to vote freely, safely, without fear. Ensuring that is a shared responsibility of all sectors, government entities and peace-advocacy groups supporting the efforts of the Commission on Elections to make clean and safe the September 14 elections in the area of responsibility of the 6th Infantry Division,” Bunayog said.