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(SDN) — For the second time, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Chief Minister Ahod Balawag “Al-Haj Murad” Ebrahim has retained his education minister for the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), one of the 15 primary ministries of the Bangsamoro government.
The retained official is none other than Mohagher M. Iqbal, a stalwart in the Mindanao peace process, the chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), who signed the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro achieved with the Government of the Philippines (GPH). He wears many hats in the GPH-MILF peace process that took around 17 years to forged the CAB.
It can be recalled that Ebrahim, who chairs the MILF, and at one time its chief negotiator, asked all the BARMM ministers to submit their courtesy resignations. The Chief Minister made the order in the aftermath of the bombing attack on worshipers on a Sunday at the Dimaporo Gym of the Mindanao State University (MSU) Main Campus in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur.
Ebrahim accepted the resignation of a few BARMM officials, retaining the majority.
Since his first appointment to the MBHTE in 2019, Iqbal, popularly known as IQ, has been putting in place reform initiatives to raise the quality of education in the Bangsamoro region.
Under his leadership, the education ministry works on the premise that “No Bangsamoro learner shall be live behind in education.”
Iqbal has already hired thousands of additional teachers and non-teaching personnel to strengthen the MBHTE reform agenda. He has been constructing new school buildings to add more classrooms, providing IT equipment for schools and teachers, Learners’ Kits, Teachers’ Kits, school supplies, among others.
Established in 2018 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), is made up of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the Special Geographic Area’s (SGA) 63 barangays or villages that voted “Yes” in a plebiscite in February 2019 to be under the BARMM jurisdiction.
According to the Philippine Atlas BARMM has 4,404,288 people. It has 116 municipalities: Basilan, 11 municipalities; Lanao del Sur, 39; undivided 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. (✓)