Peace Implementing Panel Chair Mohagher M. Iqbal emphasizes the MILF transformation into a social movement means it can no longer wage war, only non-violent, legal ways to achieve its goal
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CAMP DARAPANAN, Maguindanao del Norte, September 23, 2024 (SDN) — Chair Al-Murad Ebrahim led today, Saturday, the two-day Consultative Meeting and General Assembly of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) here in the former revolutionary group’s bastion.
At around 1:48 p.m., the event’s Secretariat announced that attendees already numbered over 320,000 people, coming from every point of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), including in other parts of Mindanao.
The highway leading to Camp Darapanan was full of vehicles coming with MILF commanders, officers, members, supporters, and other civilians, clogging every space.
Amid a sizzling hot, humid day, men, women, including some children with their parents listened to speakers as they called for unity to preserve and continue the MILF leadership of the BARMM even after the coming May 2025 parliamentary election.
Now, in the Camp Darapanan consultation and meeting, speakers after speakers discussed the MILF’s transformation into a social movement through its political wing, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) with Ebrahim as its president.
Meaning the once revolutionary organization will no longer return to its origin as a fighting entity, only in a democratic, not armed, struggle, says MILF Peace Implementing Panel Chair and Chief Negotiator Mohagher M. Iqbal.
He further underscored, “In transforming into a social movement, the MILF will remain — its name, existence, and values. We will transcend from using arms as our force into using our well fought rights, laws, and institutions as force,” Iqbal, the BARMM education minister, said.
“There’ll be no more use of arm, no more use of violence, only through peaceful means according to (the country’s) laws,” Iqbal, the head of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), one of the 15 primary ministries of the BARMM government.
When his time to take the podium came, Ebrahim narrated a recent meeting he had with President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. in Malacañang in Manila, Metro Manila.
“President Marcos asked me what help we need?” he recalled.
Ebrahim, the BARMM Chief Minister, said he told the President that “We have to strengthen our (political) machinery and that manipulation of election results be stopped, the MILF’s political wing.
“Rest assured we will help,” Ebrahim, recalling Marcos, Jr.’s response, said at Camp Darapanan before the over 300,000 attendees who applauded the revelation.
Partido Federal rep from Lanao del Sur: President wants peace to continue, MILF leadership
Ebrahim said the Marcos administration does not want the BARMM leadership to be taken by other group from the MILF.
“So, let us continue praying to Allah to overcome the coming challenge,” he said, describing the parliamentary polls next year as the “biggest challenge after the (Mindanao) war. Our war now is the next election in BARMM.
“We need to maintain the mujaheedin (MILF fighters) governing the BARMM,” Ebrahim said.
To achieve this, the MILF chief said the UBJP needs to win majority of 80 Members of the Parliament (MPs) up for election next year. Presently, he said the MILF has 42 MPs and 38 recommended by the national government.
He said aside from bets for MPs, the UBJP will also field candidates for congressmen, governors, mayors and other elective positions in the Bangsamoro region.
The MILF through the UBJP, Ebrahim pointed out, “is carrying the torch of the Bangsamoro people.”
He went on to say, “we have to strengthen our party. The MILF is a revolutionary organization that has transformed into a social movement for peace and democracy.”
Maguindanao del Norte Gov. Abdulraof Macacua, known also as Sammy Gambar as the MILF chief of staff, also gave context to the group’s shifting from armed struggle to democratic means.
“(The) MILF transition to a Social Movement is not just a shift in strategy but a reaffirmation of our dedication for peace, justice, and development,” he stressed.
Another MILF leader, Bangsamoro Wali Sheikh Muslim Guimaden cited the importance of unity and striving as one.
“The MILF have come this far because we are united, we listened to our leaders, and we follow the path of our organization,” the Islamic leader said at the event.
Meanwhile, a representative of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) head by the President as national chair, said the President wants to see peace continuing to reign and see the UBJP emerge victorious in May 2025, of which the success of the BARMM dependa.
For a time, a convoy of more than vehicles carrying attendees from BASULTA (Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi) was stuck for about 40 minutes, juxtaposed by other cars, private and public. Fortunately, policemen and marshalls took charge, opening up the highway for the convoy, as well as the other vehicles traveling to Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, and other destinations.
Minus the province of Sulu, the Bangsamoro region is comprised of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, and Tawi-Tawi, and cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the 63 barangays in North Cotabato lumped collectively as the BARMM’s Special Geographic Area (SGA) — now formed into eight municipalities.
The BARMM was established in 2019 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) forged by the MILF and the Government of the Philippines (GPH) on March 27, 2014. As a new political entity (NPE), the BARMM replaced the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which existed for 20 years.
As a peace agreement, the CAB effectively stopped the internecine war between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the MILF, which early in its life struggled and fought for the separation and independence of Southern Philippines and established a “pure Islamic State”, according to the goal laid down by the group’s founder and chair, Ustadhz Salamat Hashim, an Islamic theologian who took his Islamic studies at the world-famous Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.
After years of its struggle, the blood of the Bangsamoro people, their lives sacrificed, the MILF entered an informal talks with the GPH in 1997 in Cagayan de Oro City, in Mindanao, later on the talks leading to a formal peace negotiations. And 17 years later, the two former warring parties signed the CAB, with the MILF scaling down its struggle for independence to an autonomy stronger and more inclusive than the ARMM.
Bong Baniaga, a Christian member of the UBJP, spoke at the event, appealing to the President to let the MILF leadership continue in the BARMM.
He said Christian settlers like him believe in the MILF leadership.
BARMM Health Minister Dr. Jojo Sinolinding. (/)
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This story was and is being updated to reflect more information.