Featured photograph above shows some UBJP winning candidates with MILF Chair and UBJP President Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim when they visited him in Camp Darapanan, Crossing Simuay, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte. (Credit: MILF) 

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• EDD K. USMAN | X (Twitter): @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 |Facebook: SDN – SciTech & Digital News

COTABATO CITY, May 16, 2025 (SDN) — One of the top ranking officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Mohagher M. Iqbal, has cited the importance of cooling down the heat of the just-concluded May 12 midterm elections.

Let the rivalries be in the back burner sooner than soon, move forward and focus on what’s ahead, especially for the winners in the hotly contested polls, not just in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), but throughout the country, he emphasized.

If you did not make it in the last political exercise, there’s always another chance in next elections, Iqbal, vice president for Central Mindanao and executive vice president of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) , points out. He is the chair of  the Committee on Information, chief negotiator, and chair of the MILF Peace Implementing Panel (PIP).

In an interview with SDN — SciTech & Digital News on Thursday in his office at the Bangsamoro Government Center (BGC) here, he sent his profound felicitations and congratulations to the winning candidates of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) in Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi, Cotabato City, Special Geographic Area (SGA), and other areas of the Bangsamoro region.

He credited them for their resilience amidst overwhelming odds and a gauntlet of obstacles which they nevertheless were able to surmount and came out with the lightness of triumph.

Candidates for governor of the UBJP, the political wing of the MILF founded by Ustadhz Salamat Hashim in 1977, won in Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi; and for mayor in Cotabato City.

Its bets for governor did not win in Basilan and Lanao del Sur, and in Marawi City for mayor.

The UBJP has other winners and non-winners as well in other positions, but for a neophyte regional party, the MILF’s political arm seemed to have perform uncharacteristically well for a first-timer.

Some of its other bets for mayor won in Buluan, Maguindanao del Sur; Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, and some other municipalities.

Iqbal said triumphs should not go in the head of its winning candidates, avoid being arrogant, but rather “show magnanimity in victory, remain calm and not provocative, and extend reconciliatory hands to your opponents.”

After all, in the final analysis it’s just politics and that all the candidates only wanted to serve the good of their constituents, he said.

October 13 Bangsamoro parliamentary polls

The MILF/UBJP official took pride in that their candidates did not engage in mudslinging during the heated 45 days of campaigning while some of their opponents threw everything at them, unprintable words, even the kitchen sink.

In relation with this, he commended the UBJP candidates, members, supporters, and sympathizers for shying away from spewing mud and unsportsman-like  campaigning, instead maintaining proper decorum and unhurful language.

It’s the same message that UBJP President Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim and UBJP Secretary-General Abdulraof A. Macacua, the Bangsamoro region’s chief minister, have also enunciated as they extended reconciliatory hands to their candidates’ opponents.

Also the head of the BARMM Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), Iqbal told this pen pusher and a correspondent of a national newspaper that it took the MILF and the UBJP three years to painstakingly put in place the strategic planning and preparations leading to last Monday’s 2025 National and Local Elections (NLE).

Another fruit of the -MILF-UBJP touching base with the grassroots is that nine of the 12 senatorial candidates they endorsed are part of the Magic 12 winning circle.

And to think that this is officially the first time the MILF chaired by Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim participated in an election and that many of the Front’s leaders exercise their right to vote for the first time after 32 years as they spent long stretch of their lives living dangerously underground as they fought in the Mindanao war for the Bangsamoro people’s right to self-determination.

Iqbal said that covered in the UBJP electoral drive is a huge “no-no to mudslinging, even if some of our political foes hurled ridiculously offensive remarks and even slanderous public statements against our candidates.”

He stressed that after all is said and done, the people have spoken.

“Let bygones be bygones,” Iqbal tells MILF and UBJP candidates, members, supporters, and sympathizers.

He took note of the Moro people’s renewed enthusiasm in asserting their right to push for change and translated their will through pen and the ballots, which the UBJP owes to them.

“But we say to them, ‘be magnanimous in victory’,” Iqbal reiterates.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the MILF-UBJP’s good showing in the just concluded political exercise, it will be interesting to see if it would carry over to the forthcoming October 13 first regional polls for the 80 parliamentary seats in the Bangsamoro region.

The regional election’s significance owes it to the desire of the MILF leadership to continue as the governing power so they can continue to push for the full implemention of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), meaning the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s full compliance with its provisions.

MILF leaders worry that if the UBJP does not hold the majority in the regular parliament, the peace process, especially the CAB’s full and complete implementation, might suffer a setback. (√)

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