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COTABATO CITY, February 15, 2024 (SDN) – Organizers of the 1st General Assembly of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chaired by Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod B. “Al-Haj Murad” Ebrahim” is presently in the thick of preparation.
Expected to attend are projected 10,000 officials and members of the UBJP, including party President Ebrahim and other stalwarts of the party.
It will be held on Saturday, February 17, at the Cotabato State University (CSU) Oval along the city’s Sinsuat Avenue.
The media unit of the UBJP conducted a series of online forum a few days ago for members of the news media, local-based and some coming from Manila to cover the event.
A “Notice of Genera Assembly” sent to reporters and bloggers from the office of Ebrahim, the UBJP president, detailed the assembly’s agenda.
They are Presentation of the Party President Report; Presentation of Party Organizational Structure from Regional, Provincial, City, Municipal, and Barangay Charters and Mandatory Committees; Election of Party Officers; Oath Taking of Party Officers and Committee Chairpersons’ and Mass Oath Taking of New Members.
The UBJP president encouraged registered members of the party “to reach out to your respective local party officials to ensure” the General Assembly’s orderly conduct and voting. Members must present valid proof to identity them.
Member who will not be able to attend the gathering in person may join and appear on Zoom videoconferencing, the UBJP notice said.
After the program at the CSU Oval, the UBJP will conduct a press conference at the CSU Graduate School Building, located across from the CSU Grandstand, the expansive Oval in between.
Organizers of the gathering said they expect officials and members of the MILF-affiliated political party to attend coming from the island component provinces of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The Bangsamoro region is comprised of three mainland provinces such as Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, and Maguindanao del Norte. Its island components are Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi. Its component cities are Cotabato (Maguindanao del Norte), Lamitan (Basilan), and Marawi (Lanao del Sur).
Bangsamoro peace process comes full circle: from Marcos, Sr. to Marcos, Jr.
It was established in 2018 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). In a plebiscite in February 2019, 63 barangays or villages in North Cotabato voted “Yes” 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.
Led by Ebrahim, who succeeded MILF Founder and Chair Ustadhz Salamat Hashim after his demise on July 13, 2003, the former revolutionary organization, which fought for an Islamic State in Southern Philippines, formed the UBJP in 2013 as the MILF anticipated throwing its political hat in the arena.
The MILF is running the BARMM government though the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), which originally had a three-year timetable to govern the autonomous region from 2019 to 2022.
But the coronavirus pandemic that stormed through the world, killing more than seven million globally, including more than 60,000 in the Philippines, stymied the mandate of the BTA, thereby raising a clamor for a three-year extension of the transition phase.
Congress then passed a law resetting the scheduled first parliamentary election of the BARMM to May 2025, and signed by then President Rodrigo R. Duterte. Ebrahim was Duterte’s appointee as Chief Minister, which after winning massively in May 2022 President Ferdinand R. Marcos. Jr. re-appointed the MILF chair as Chief Minister.
As luck would have it, the current President’s father, the late Marcos, Sr., started the Mindanao peace process with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) with the signing of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement.
Now the President of the Philippines, Marcos, Jr. has in his hands the opportunity to complete the cycle of the peace negotiations with the two Moro fronts. The implementation of the MNLF and MILF peace accords with the government now lies in the younger Marcos’s hands. The peace process has come full circle. (✓)