MILF Chairman's Son Wins BARMM Seat, Defeating Former Top Commander

MANILA, Philippines – The highly contested head-to-head race between the son of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman and the high-ranking officer stripped of a position has finally concluded. In the end, it was the MILF’s United Bangsamoro Justice Party that prevailed. The UBJP’s Mansor Ebrahim, the son of MILF Chairman Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim, topped the race for the 1st District seat of the Special Geographic Area (SGA). He received 29,061 votes, according to 100% of the SGA’s election returns for the 2026 Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao parliamentary elections as of Monday, September 14, 11:29 pm. The Bangsamoro Federalist Party (BFP), the UBJP’s rival, fielded Butch Malang, who is the former SGA Development Authority administrator, a member of the region’s interim parliament, and the recently axed chair of the MILF Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities. Malang only got 17,386 votes. The stakes were particularly high in this race because of Malang’s history with the MILF. Just a week before the election, it was the central committee led by the Ebrahim patriarch that stripped Malang of his committee chairmanship. A news release by the MILF’s information committee owed it to “a leadership rift years in the making.” It apparently began when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. unceremoniously replaced the elder Ebrahim as interim chief minister with then-MILF army chief Abdulraof Macacua in March 2025. (READ: MILF central committee frowns on BARMM leadership change) Tensions only grew as Macacua began making decisions as chief minister without consulting the MILF. In the end, Macacua and several other high-ranking MILF officials, including Malang, defected from the UBJP to the BFP. Macacua, Malang, and their cohorts had been suspended from their positions in the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces for months before they were eventually removed—though they remain members of the MILF. With Malang defeated, the younger Ebrahim is set to serve a special five-year transition term from October 30, 2026, to June 30, 2031. He will be one of the 32 district representatives making up 40% of the 80-seat Bangsamoro Parliament. – Rappler.com