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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
MINDANAO STATE UNIVERSITY, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, June 22, 2024 (SDN) — “Matu Tanu!” (We Fight.)
This political battle cry reverberated in the confines of a steamy Gymnasium of the Mindanao State University (MSU)-Maguindanao here as the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) staged its General Assembly for Central Mindanao. Assembly Secretariat placed the final number of attendees at over 153,000 warm bodies.
UBJP President Ahod Balawag “Al-Haj Murad” Ebrahim spoke before thousands of the regional party’s new and old members and supporters sweating it out in the Gymnasium. An estimated tens of thousands more who can no longer be accommodated stayed outside, milling around, mostly standing, men and women, young and old, youthful, even some babies, still suckling babies, brought along by their mothers.
It was, apparently, a day of harvest for the UBJP, a harvest of new members and supporters, who took their oath before Ebrahim, the interim Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The host of the assembly, UBJP Executive Vice President and Vice President for Central Mindanao Mohagher M. Iqbal and his team organized with its partners the gathering aimed at pulling together the party’s officials, members, and supporters to offer a stronger front in the forthcoming first parliamentary elections in May 2025 of the Bangsamoro region.
He said the gathering at MSU-Maguindanao marked the UBJP’s sixth General Assembly, saying earlier gatherings were in Libungan Torreta, Fahamudin; Poona Bayabao, Lanao del Sur; Lamitan, Basilan; Bongao, Tawi-Tawi; and Cotabato City.
Iqbal laid down the significance of the assembly. He said it is part of worship and jihad (holy struggle for betterment), a requirement of the law for political parties to assemble, explain to the people that the UBJP has many vice presidents representing various sectors, showing that the party is all-inclusive that no one is left behind, Muslim, Christian, Indigenous People.
He was supposed to only give the opening remarks, but he asked for indulgence to speak a bit longer to take advantage of the assembly where he is the host, being the UBJP vice president for Central Mindanao.
Earlier, SDN — SciTech & Digital News spoke with a male observer around past 10 a.m., he and others seated on a makeshift hut along the highway, watching and ogling at hundreds of people passing by in cars, payong-payong (tricycle with an umbrella), many more walking to the direction of MSU.
“I went to the Gymnasium at around 7 a.m., but it was already overflowing with people,” he said, as an armored personnel carrier (APC) nearby of the military and police providing security sat idle on the highway’s shoulder.
No wonder that between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. assembly attendees stayed outside the Gymnasium, under the trees, shady and cool. Some women seated on the grassy ground, or on the pavement, listening to the speakers inside the Gymnasium, booming loud and clear.
Ebrahim, chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has joined the political arena through its political arm the UBJP, recalled the MILF-led struggle for the Bangsamoro people’s self-determination, for equality, economic uplift, and social inclusion.
UBJP carries constancy of commitment on 2024 CAB implementation
The UBJP president emphasized the vital need for unity and oneness in purpose, saying that if the party wins in the regional elections the MILF will still led the BARMM. “But if we cannot be united the fruits of the struggle will be lost,” Ebrahim warned.
“We are working to get united. The MILF is serious in its desire for an election that is clean and with integrity,” he said in the Maguindanaon dialect. “Let us remember where all this came from.” He was apparently referring to the decades of war in Mindanao brought on by the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination which produced the BARMM through the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).
“In the UBJP, our vision is clear about promoting in our government a genuine and principled political party. Let us do everything to achieve unity for UBJP to win in the 2025 election,” Ebrahim said, as he concluded with a Qur’anic verse on unity: “And hold firmly to the rope of Allah and do not be divided.” Chapter 3 (Suran Al-Imran), Verse 103.
Meanwhile, UBJP Vice President for Women Aida Silongan assured the party’s members and supporters that “you can rely on women.”
She said the BARMM government is governing with Moral Governance and that women’s rights will not be neglected. Silongan also revealed that the Bangsamoro Electoral Code (BEC) requires the 40-member BARMM Parliament to have 30 percent women in its ranks.
In a related development, UBJP Secretary General Abdulraof Macacua recalled that the BARMM Chief Minister spent 50 years of his life in the Bangsamoro struggle.
The incumbent governor of Maguindanao del Norte, Macacua cited the presence at the assembly of MILF Base Commanders, Central Committee members, and other leaders.
“We are here to strengthen UBJP, like what IQ (Mohagher M, Iqbal said a while ago,” he pointed out.
“Our motto today,” Macacua said, “is Matu Tanu”, that in a fight, it is important to be from a high ground for advantage, to be kind, to be well-behaved, and to have a good plan.
The BARMM minister of education, Iqbal in his speeches has time and again emphasized the continuity of MILF leadership to sustain the gains and fruits of the Bangsamoro peace process.
He had cited the case of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM) guerrilla struggle on Sumatra Island’s northern tip, Indonesia. Iqbal said leaders of GAM continued to govern Aceh, sustaining the gains of their peace process that was moderated by former Finnish President Martii Ahtisaari in 2005.
Iqbal had emphasized that in like manner as in the Free Aceh Movement organization, the MILF needs to continue leading the BARMM government in order to preserve the gains of the peace process, as well as ensure the full implementation of the peace accord.
In saying that, Iqbal, appropriately the chair of the MILF Peace Implementing Panel, he obviously was sending the message that only the MILF would be as determined and committed in seeing to the 2014 CAB’s full implementation. He also apparently meant that traditional politicians may not necessarily possess the constancy of purpose vis-a-vis the national government’s compliance with the peace agreement signed on March 27, 10 years ago. (/)