MILF Updates Members, Peace Stakeholders on CAB Implementation, Other Issues

edd1994

4 years ago

“As the MILF transitions from an armed revolutionary organization, it needs to understand more concretely how its own people and supporters are making the adjustments and what challenges they confront and how better it can contribute to hurdling these.”

— BARMM Spokesman and Interior Minister Naguib G. Sinarimbo

BARMM News

By EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — Science, Digital & Current Affairs

Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-l9s

COTABATO CITY (SDN) — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has been updating its members and peace stakeholders on the implementation of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).

On August 15, 2022 the second leg of the MILF consultations attended by thousands that included stakeholders of the Mindanao peace process was conducted at Camp Kura Kura in Lanao del Norte and another in Panamao in Sulu. The campn btys6sfyg is under the leadership of Kumander Bravo.

**Interior Minister Naguib G. Sinarimbo. (Photo: SDN — Science and Digital News)**

Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG) Minister Naguib G. Sinarimbo said issues on the CAB implementation outside of the BARMM, which Lanao del Norte is not a part of, were raised.

In the province of Sulu (which is part of BARMM), MILF members assembled in the municipality of Panamao, he said, during which they expressed their continuing support to the leadership of the MILF under Chairman Ahod Balawag “Al-Hajj Murad” Ebrahim, who succeeded the group’s founding chairman, Ustadhz Salamat Hashim.

The MILF consultations came in the wake of the oathtaking before President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. the 80 members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) headed by Interim Minister Al-Hajj Murad Ebrahim.

The 80 members of the BTA, which runs and governs the BARMM transition, 41 were nominated by the MILF and 39 nominees from the Philippine government (GPH). Most of the new Members of Parliament (MPs) were re-appointed with a sprinkling of neophytes, especially from the GPH side of nominations.

Apparently, the new developments in the government’s compliance with provisions of the CABs implementation, with the Marcos administration inheriting its implementation from the Duterte regime, the MILF made the consultations.

The first leg of the consultations, said Sinarimbo, also the BARMM spokesperson, were conducted on August 14 at the Mindanao State University (MSU) Gym in Bongao, TAwi-Tawi; in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan; and in Malabang, Lanao del Sur.

Sinarimbo emphasized that the MILF “is holding consultations with its meebers and supporters to determine their sentiments and, at the same time, to inform them of the latest developments on the BARMM and what has been done so far; the MILF and its political party the UBJP (United Bangsamoro Justice Party); and the status and challenges of the Peace Process implementation.”

The consultations in photographs:

Images of consultations through MILG.

“As the MILF transitions from an armed revolutionary organization, it needs to understand more concretely how its own people and supporters are making the adjustments and what challenges they confront and how better it can contribute to hurdling these,” the MILG head pointed out.

The consultations are a tradition in the MILF, as it gathers consensus and new ideas from its members.

More photographs:

“I remember during the negotiations, every time we were confronted with major challenges, we would always defer decision-making and would advice our counterparts from the GPH that the matter would have to be consulted to our principal who in turn would hold consultations,” the MILG head said.

Sinarimbo said “other areas are also scheduled to hold their consultations in the coming days, adding the consultations will feed into the policies and programs of the MILF, its political party and the BARMM as an institution that it now leads.”

BTA members have a new term of three years, 2022-2025, as the then President Rodrigo R. Duterte approved the transition period, which was supposed to lapse on June 30, 2022.

Created in 2018 through the historic Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), the Bangsamoro region is comprised of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the 63 villages collectively dubbed Special Geographic Area (SGA) in North Cotabato province that voted “yes” in a plebiscite in January and February 2019 to be under the Bangsamoro government’s jurisdiction.

The BARMM population per the Philippine Atlas has 4,404,288 people. It has 116 municipalities: Basilan, 11 municipalities; Lanao del Sur, 39; Maguindanao, 36; Sulu, 19; and Tawi-Tawi, 11. Its component cities are Cotabato (the regional center and capital) in Maguindanao; Lamitan in Basilan; and Marawi in Lanao del Sur. (✓)

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Featured image by SDN — Science and Digital News is MILF Chairman and BTA Interim Chief Minister Al-Hajj Murad Ebrahim taken during the Solidarity Dinner on August 10, 2022 at Dusit Thani Manila, Makati City, Metro Manila.