Featured image above shows MILF and UBJP official Mohagher M. Iqbal as he shakes hands with Sen. Imee R. Marcos after their joint press conference at the Senate. Marcos invited Iqbal to shed light on the emerging attempts to postpone the BARMM parliamentary polls already set for October 13, 2025. Both Iqbal and Marcos want the election to push through. (SDN screenshot from the press conference)
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MANILA, June 5, 2025 (SDN) — United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) Vice President for Central Mindanao Mohagher M. Iqbal revealed today, Thursday, that a group and some personalities are working behind the scenes to postpone once again the October 13 parliamentary polls in the Bangsamoro region.
If the sneaky move succeeds it will mark the third postponement of the political exercise to elect the 80 regular members of the Parliament (MPs), from which they will pick the first regularly elected Chief Minister who will serve for three years as head of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Iqbal, chair of the Peace Implementing Panel (PIP) of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), head of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), recalled the first postponement was from May 2022 to May 2025 under then President Rodrigo R. Duterte, and the second from May 12, 2025, to October 13, 2025, granted by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. when he signed the law to that effect.
Iqbal, also an appointive MP, was invited to by re-elected Sen. Imee R. Marcos to her Thursday Press Conference at the Senate in Pasay City, Metro Manila.
They jointly fielded questions from members of the media covering the Senate, as they discussed the attempts by some quarters and personalities aimed at a third deferment of the BARMM first regular elections.
Marcos made clear she is opposed to the attempts to postpone the parliamentary polls, saying “parang niloloko na natin ang mga Kapatid nating Muslim” (it is like we are fooling our brother Muslims).
She questioned the links between the country’s barangay elections and the parliamentary polls.
While confirming the presence of a group and some personalities behind the deferment attempts, Iqbal, when asked, declined to identify the group and the personalities, saying he is “not ready yet” to make the disclosure.
The UBJP is the political wing of the MILF, which on September 23, 2024, formally shifted and transformed from an armed revolutionary group to a social movement.
In the last National and Local Elections (NLE) on May 12, the UBJP registered significant victories, a remarkable turn for a neophyte political party, winning the governor seats of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, and Tawi-Tawi, and the mayoral posts of Cotabato City and Datu Odin Sinsuat, both municipalities of Maguindanao del Norte, and other areas in the Bangsamoro region. The UBJP also lost in some contests.
In the press conference with Marcos, Iqbal read a statement on the desire of the MILF Central Committee chaired by Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim to see the parliamentary polls being held as scheduled on October 13.
He said the MILF is strongly appealing to the President, the Senate and the House of Representatives to refrain from entertaining any call to postpone the regional political exercise.
The MILF, he emphasized, is concerned over the reports on the postponement attempts.
Iqbal adds, “The MILF and the UBJP is ready and to participate (and accept whatever result).”
There are so many reports on the attempts, he stressed, “We are here to appeal it will not be postpone again. We are ready, we are in a democratic process.”
Marcos said he told Senate President Francis Escudero that she does not want the postponement of the Bangsamoro elections for the third time.
“Most of all, the BARMM election should proceed,” she emphasizes.
That is why, the senator from Ilocos Norte pointed out, Iqbal is calling for the holding of the polls as scheduled. — EDD K. Usman (√)