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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
(SDN) — President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod B. “Al-Haj Murad” Ebrahim, and Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal have hailed the success of the National Government and Bangsamoro Government Inter-Governmental Relations Body (IGRB).
“Bagong Pilipinas is incomplete without a Bagong Bangsamoro rising along and within it,” the President said at an IGRB meeting on Thursday, January 8.
Marcos cited the importance of the IGRB, saying it “reaffirms our shared commitment not just to peace, but peace with progress.”
“A stronger BARMM means a stronger Mindanao, and a stronger Mindanao means a stronger Philippines, bringing as closer to achieving our Prosperity Agenda,” the President said the PICC, as he reaffirmed strong support for the Bangsamoro autonomous region.
Ebrahim credited the “productive partnership between the national government and the Bangsamoro government, facilitated through the IGRB.”
For the 17th time that day at the Philippine International Conversation Center (PICC) in Pasay City, Metro Manila, the IGRB convened. Marcos and Ebrahim, chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attended the Body’s first meeting in the Year of the Dragon. It was the sixth IGRB meeting under the Marcos administration.
“Indeed, this is the perfect forum to continue our noble work and advance our shared mission of peace and development in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (in Muslim Mindanao, BARMM),” the Chief Minister said during the meeting.
Department of the Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman, co-chair of the IGRB, was also present at the meeting, so with other top national government and BARMM officials, senators, congressmen, Bangsamoro Members of Parliament (MPs), and other guests.
In his Welcome Remarks during the meeting, IGRB Co-Chair Mohagher M. Iqbal thanked the President and the Chief Minister for their support.
“We have definitely come a long way in the implementation of the peace agreement. The strides we’ve made through the effective and productive collaboration of the National Government and the Bangsamoro Government, as we arrive at solutions to challenges of inter-governmental relations, is testament to the unflinching commitment of our principals – the Chief Minister and the President – as well as all those involved in ensuring the success of this political solution to the decades- and even generations-long armed conflict,” Iqbal, who also chairs the MILF Peace Implementing Panel.
The DBM chief assured full support to help sustain the Bangsamoro region’s progress in improving the population’s life.
“We will not leave our future vulnerable to threats that will undermine the developments that we have painstakingly pushed,” Pangandaman said.
Not time to rest over success as more challenges lay ahead
The IGRB was established in 2019 through the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), which implements the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). IGRB’s tasks revolves around coordination and resolution of inter-governmental relations issues between the National Government and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. It does its task “through regular consultation and continuing negotiation in a non-adversarial manner.”
On March 27, 2014, the Philippines and the MILF signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) after a tumultuous peace negotiation that lasted 17 years. Presently, peace, stability, and security have dawned on Mindanao brought about by the landmark peace accord.
And as Iqbal has it, he describes the IGRB “one of the most active and results-bearing innovations of the Bangsamoro peace process.”
He noted that here in the Philippines, as compared to other countries where “the most seasoned of political leaders are scrambling to end the wars in their midst, we in the Philippines and in the Bangsamoro are reaping the fruits of sincerity, mutual esteem, and determination to make the lives of our people better.”
While there’s still “more to do”, Iqbal, head of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (BARMM-MBHTE), noted the Bangsamoro Government is on to its “increasing exercise of jurisdiction…towards the fulfillment of its status as a genuinely autonomous political entity is being realized left and right.”
On the other hand, it’s not the time to rest on “our laurels yet” because while compromises were achieved on “more controversial and seemingly insurmountable differences,” the issues that “remain for discussion are equally challenging not just in terms of technicality but also because they strike at the heart of our people’s quest for self-determination.”
Iqbal credits guidance of President, Chief Minister for IGRB results
One of the issues he cited is the Hajj, the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, saying it “has not been properly taken care of.”
He cited one of the reasons on why the BARMM should handle the pilgrimage of Filipinos. “It is due to adversities experienced in the past by our pilgrims that we earnestly hope that the Bangsamoro Government will manage Bangsamoro pilgrims to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, starting this year.”
Iqbal did not mention any of the “adversities” in particular, but he was apparently referring to the voluminous pilgrims’ complaints lodged at the doorstep of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) during and after last year’s pilgrimage. In fact, the House of Representatives conducted a series of public hearings on the pilgrims’ complaints, as congressmen grilled concerned NCMF officials.
Iqbal cited other pressing issues, one of them the process of consultation on the selection of the regional director for the BARMM Police Regional Office (PRO), saying the issue “touches on the internal security of our homeland”, an issue the Bangsamoro government is looking forward to resolving it through the IGRB.
“There may be other issues of paramount consideration, but for as long as we remain committed to the faithful implementation of the CAB and the Bangsamoro Organic Law, big happenings are underway leaving the crucial ones more time to brew,” an optimistic Iqbal points out.
The IGRB co-chair credited the President and the Chief Minister for their “guidance” in resolving issues on the full implementation of the CAB. (/)