Featured image above captured at the Consultative Meeting on September 24, 2024, shows the attendees belonging to the MILF’s military and civilian components. (Photo: SDN)
Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-HRy
- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 |Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
CAMP DARAPANAN, Maguindanao del Norte, September 29, 2024 (SDN) — Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim on Tuesday, September 24, presided over a high-level meeting here of the former revolutionary organization.
In the exclusive meeting dubbed the MILF Central Committee Expanded Meeting with top leaders of the former revolutionary group in attendance, it was a lively, open, and freewheeling discussion of issues confronting the group founded in 1977 by the late Chairman Ustadhz Salamat Hashim.
(No reporter was given the chance to cover the event except this journalist from Manila to witness and cover the proceeding, dialogue, and discussion.)
As explained to SDN — SciTech & Digital News, Ustadhz Nhorul-am Abdullah, senior political adviser at the Parliament of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) which governs the BARMM under the MILF, attendees included Central Committee members, Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (MILF-BIAF) General Staff, Front commanders, Base commanders, Provincial Political Committee chairmen, their deputies, and all line agencies of the group. Among the participants came from the Women Sector of the MILF.
The attendees easily number more or less 200 warm bodies.
Two hot topics dominated the open forum presided by Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Chief Minister Ebrahim, such as (1.) the MILF’s transformation into a “social movement” and (2.) the coming Bangsamoro first parliamentary polls in May 2025, part of the country’s mid-term elections.
It was the second and final day of the Consultative Meeting and General Assembly (CMGA) on Monday and Tuesday (September 23-24) here at the bastion of the group, a thriving MILF community in Crossing Simuay, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte, one of the five provinces comprising the Bangsamoro region established in January 2019.
The area was a battlefield during the then ousted President Joseph Estrada’s all-out war against the MIILF in 2000. A few kilometers away upward in the mountainous area of Barira, Maguindanao del Norte, BARMM, is the MILF’s Main Headquarters called Camp Abubakar As-Siddique, where’s Estrada’s blitzkrieg was focused.
Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, and Tawi-Tawi comprised the Bangsamoro region’s territory after the Supreme Court nullified this month the membership of the island province of Sulu in the BARMM.
The first day of the event also led by Ebrahim, president of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), which organized the CMGA, saw over 300,000 attendees braved a sizzling hot mid-day sun. Attendees looked for every shade they can find among the scarce trees in the open field venue punctuated with three large tents. Many more were in the open field, loitering and walking around, talking, conversing, and listening to the speeches after speeches booming on the loudspeakers.
On the fringes of the venue, enterprising traders put up makeshift eateries offering “Chicken Pastil”, a staple in Moro celebrations, events, and other gatherings, while also offering bottled water, and soft drinks, Moro delicacies, among others.
Ebrahim formally kicked off the well-attended consultative meeting to collect the sentiments of the MILF leaders about its transformation into a social movement.
“Our meeting today, the Expanded Meeting of the Central Committee, basically we will have an assessment of the General Assembly (September 23) we conducted. At least we will see its result and at the same time (determine) what are our ways forward. So, that’s one of the things I see,” he says.
Ebrahim, former MILF vice chairman and chief negotiator, thanked his fellow group officials and members for attending the General Assembly, saying it was probably the MILF’s biggest with over 300,000 attendees coming from various points of Mindanao.
“So, that’s the capital I can see that will give as idea on what result came out and our ways going forward.”
Ebrahim said the second thing that he learned about was that “we have officially declared the transformation of the MILF into a social movement. Being a jihadist organization, the MILF will now be transformed into a social movement to include all the affairs of the Bangsamoro.”
That’s the two agenda that can be taken up in the meeting aimed at consulting the MILF leaders, he added.
The MILF chairman emphasized that the organization needs guidelines for the transformation, including for all its agencies on how they can help in the transformation.
Macacua in Manila, receiving Japan’s donation of a state-of-the-art Mobile Hospital
While the interim Chief Minister was speaking to the attendees, the MILF Chief of Staff and Maguindanao del Norte Gov. Abdulraof A. Macacua sauntered into the long presidential table to take his place on an empty chair.
Ebrahim then noted the new arrival, jokingly saying “here’s the chief minister”, while giving off a brief, light, and friendly laugh while sporting a smile.
“Eh, (MILF) chief of staff ‘pala'”, the MILF commander in chief corrects himself.
Macacua, himself smiling, obviously was amused being called “chief minister” and took it in the spirit it was given. It was clear though the BARMM Chief Minister was kidding his chief of staff known by his nom de guerre Sammy Gambar.
Macacua, the UBJP secretary general, took the microphone to explain why he was not able to attend the General Assembly a day earlier.
He said he was in Manila to receive a high-tech Mobile Hospital from the Japanese Government, but he did all he could to catch the Saturday event. His flight, though, on that day to Davao City (he was not able to book a Cotabato City flight) was not nearly enough to arrive in time to join the assembly’s first day.
Macacua said that when they landed in Davao City they immediately took off, but it was not enough so he ordered the driver to slow down after knowing along the way that the assembly was concluded at around 2 p.m.
“Baka ano pa mangyari (Something bad may happen,” he says, passing the microphone to Ebrahim.
The Chief Minister said that in his personal assessment the work awaiting the MILF is wider now. It is wider because it is not just a revolution, but it covers all the affairs of the Bangsamoro people. “So, we should all be involved.”
“That’s what we should define, how we are going to transform into a social movement,” the UBJP president said.
A few moments later he passed the microphone to MILF Peace Implementing Panel Chairman Mohagher M. Iqbal, chief negotiator, and BARMM education minister.
He was given the task of explaining to the body of attendees the process of the MILF’s transforming into a social movement.
At the outset, Iqbal made clear that all the things he is going to say are his personal opinion, his own research, not official, and at best only semi-official, saying the official declaration will come from the MILF’s policy making body, the Central Committee.
“If we talk about social movement, Kilusang Panglipunan is not enough to capture (the totality of the essence of) a social movement.
“Anyway, for the meantime we can adopt Kilusang Panglipunan. To a certain extent we can also say People’s Movement because ‘social’ is people. In the Dictionary, it says ‘interaction of individual or group for the welfare of human beings or members of society,” the MILF chief negotiator points out.
He said “society” is people, citizens, adding Kilusang Panglipunan is like People’s Struggle because “movement” is similar to struggle. “But our final interpretation of social movement, we have to continue studying it.”
Iqbal said social movements has two classes, armed movements such as of the MILF, Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Hamas, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Free Acheh Movement. He said he cited them as examples because of their connection to Muslims. “Armed movements are included also in social movement’s definition.”
Transforming into a social movement, MILF’s most crucial decision
For the second class, unarmed social movements include Indonesia’s Muhammadiyah and Nahdatul Ulama, Pakistan’s Jamiah Islamiyyah, Turkiye’s Justice and Development Party, he said.
“So, let us remember that, armed and unarmed,” Iqbal, addressing the MILF leaders, says.
What’s the difference between a political party like the UBJP to a social movement? he asked rhetorically.
He explained that a social movement has wider coverages than a political party because the goal of a political party is to win in an election.
In a social movement like the MILF’s transformation, winning in an election is just one of the objectives, but it’s not just that. The MILF has very wide coverages if transformed into a social movement.
Social movements, he pointed out, have many kinds. there is Islamic like the MILF, there’s socialist, there’s democratic, and there’s communist. In an Islamic one, there’s Jihadist which is armed.
A socially transformed MILF will cover programs, among others, like education, health, economic, environment, but most important it has ideology, which is no other than Islam, in its complete form (a way of life), not just worship, not just rituals, Iqbal said as he nodded to the Ulama (Islamic religious leaders) present at the meeting.
How can the MILF achieve this, he asked, in designing the group as a social movement. “It’s a very exacting work. No one of us, with respect to the Chief Minister, can do it. We cannot do it, so how?”
Iqbal suggested having workshops and inviting resource persons who are not run-of-the-mill, those who are already fighting for something. “I am recommending the Justice and Development Party of Turkiye because their party is very close to us. They really emphasize ideology. They failed many times. Their foe is the whole world.”
(Note that today, Turkiye’s Justice and Development Party (or AK Party in its Turkish form) is the ruling party in the Muslim country since 2002. The head of the Turkish government is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.)
Others like Muhammadiyah and Nahdatul Ulama, he pointed out, emphasize Islam’s religious aspect.
In the workshop, Iqbal said, participants are the Ulama of the MILF, Central Committee, the military (BIAF), political committees, women, CSOs (civil society organizations), lawyers, and other educators.
When knowledge and understanding of the social movement are already ripe after lectures from at least three expert resource persons, the workshop shifts into designing the MILF social movement to arrive at its form, objective and program.
“Whatever comes out of the workshop, it would still be a mere recommendation because the Central Committe will be the one to study it (and make the official declaration),” he adds.
Iqbal cautioned the MILF leaders that it is not easy. He added that in the workshop where the group’s social movement will be designed, its objective, curriculum, program, etc., “it will be the most formal declaration of the MILF’s transformation into a social movement.”
“If we write the history of the MIILF as a social movement, it started yesterday (September 23), the formal launching of the MILF into a social movement,” he says.
“In my view, in a long struggle you look at the context, you look at the situation, what is your appropriate approach, what is your appropriate strategy. In our situation today, our decision to transform into a social movement in our struggle is the most crucial,” he emphasizes.
Iqbal cited another example. He said if the MILF goes back to using armed struggle now that there’s a ceasefire with the Philippine government, there is also the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), there is also the BARMM, “if we use arms (again) without big reasons, we will sink.”
“I think, on a personal note, this is the most appropriate decision of the MILF, transforming into a social movement. And, you know, with respect to the Chief Minister, I’ve been part of this struggle since 1972.”
Explaining further his point, he stressed that the MILF, its officers and members, the whole body, need to know the Bangsamoro’s rights, but not just studying them, which is just one part of the equation.
What is contained in the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), what is contained in the CAB, and more than that, they should learn about their rights, what is due them, and study how to win them.
“It is important that we learn how to get them, the rights that we ought to have,” says Iqbal, the MILF’s Information Committe chairman. (✓)