“We cannot simply ask the Bangsamoro people to forgive and forget and move on to the future. No amount of long dribble strategy can escape us from the need to implement TJR. The horrors of the past will continue to haunt the Bangsamoro and fuel ongoing conflicts until both the National Government and Bangsamoro proceed with the TJR process.”

— MILF PIP Chair Mohagher M. Iqbal

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MANILA, April 23, 2025 (SDN) — While awaiting Congress’s action on pending bills on Bangsamoro transitional justice and reconciliation, the regional parliament on April 21 took upon itself to file a similar legislation.

It could be noted the Upper Chamber has its own Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Act (Senate Bill No. 2043) and the Lower House its House Bill Nos. 4330 and 2975 for a Bangsamoro Transitional and Justice Program.

But as the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Parliament noted with apparent disappointment, the bills in both chambers have been “in limbo” since they were filed in 2023.

(“Limbo” is a situation where nothing happens for a long time. In religious reference, “limbo” is a place between Heaven and Hell.)

So, while the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is awaiting the realization of the transitional justice and reconciliation bills in Congress, the regional legislative body is doing its own due diligence, though seemingly might be a bit late, too.

As one of the members of the Parliament (MPs) at the BTA, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Peace Implementing Panel Chair Mohagher M. Iqbal sponsored a bill to this effect, citing the importance of having a legislation that addresses regional concerns and issues on transitional justice and reconciliation.

The regional measure, BTA Parliament Bill No. 353, with its long title, An Act Establishing a Regional Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Program, Creating for the Purpose the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission, Appropriating Funds, Therefore, and for Other Purposes, got its plenary treatment at the Parliament on April 21, 2025.

Iqbal, education minister of BARMM’s Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) delivered his sponsorship, highlighting the bill’s importance to peace and stability, the issues, concerns, problems wrought by decades of injustice, discrimination, and neglect of the national government towards the local Muslims.

He then acknowledged the regional in scope bill can also do so much, citing particularly what the MBHTE can do to address the solutions as contemplated in the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).

As for the proposed Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), meaning on the level of the Bangsamoro government, mentioning specifically the MBHTE, the Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission (BHRC), and the Bangsamoro Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (BCPCH), the peacemaker emphasized they are already implementing on some particular recommendations of the TJRC.

They are:

• Developing culturally and gender-sensitive educational material related to the Bangsamoro and indigenous people for the national curricula in all regions and at all levels.
• Creating an educational program, targeting schools at all a grade level that explains the history of the Bangsamoro and indigenous peoples, their culture and their contribution to the Philippine history and identity.
• Strengthening Islamic education and the madaris system as an integral part of the Philippine educational system.

Iqbal said he was greatly honored and privileged to sponsor, on behalf of the Government of the Day the legislation, BTA Bill No. 353.

The BARMM and MILF official noted the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation (TJR) aspect of the 17 years Government of the Philippines (GPH) and MILF Peace talks “is the closest to my heart”.

He explained why he has strong feelings towards the TJR.

“This is very personal to me because it deals squarely with the legitimate grievances of the Moro people. It underpins the legitimacy of the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination.”

The MILF PIP chair made plain that his views on the TJR aligns with the report of the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), to that effect that the “legitimate grievances of the Bangsamoro people, historical injustice, human rights violations, and marginalization through land dispossession” were the results of “three mutually reinforcing phenomena: deep neglect by the State (and lack of a vision for the common good), violence (including systematic socioeconomic, political and cultural exclusion, and disproportionate use of direct violence), supported by a deeply embedded (nationwide culture and practice of) impunity.”

Iqbal pointed out the phenomena’s root cause which, he stresses, is the compulsion of what he described “a monolithic Filipino identity and Philippine State by force on multiple ethnic groups in Mindanao and Sulu that saw themselves as already preexisting nations and nation-states.”

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“It was deliberate to place it under Normalization because the Bangsamoro contemporary situation can never normalize without the Filipino and Moro nations dealing with our bloody and violent past.”

The MILF PIP chair noted that in the peace process’s Annex on Normalization the TJR was covered parallel with Decommissioning, Amnesty, Camp Transformation, Gradual Withdrawal of the Military and Disbandment of Armed Groups, among other aspects, which he emphasized was included purposedly.

“It was deliberate to place it under Normalization because the Bangsamoro contemporary situation can never normalize without the Filipino and Moro nations dealing with our bloody and violent past,” Iqbal asserts.