To proceed or not to proceed is the question now hanging over the first Bangsamoro parliamentary polls already set for October 13 this year

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MANILA, July 25, 2025 (SDN) — Still the word, so far, from the Commission on Elections (Comelec), is that the October 13 parliamentary political exercise is a go.

While in the midst of preparations for the historic polls, Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia said they are only awaiting the passage of Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) bills for the reallocation of the seven parliamentary districts previously held by the province of Sulu. The Supreme Court cut the province’s political umbilical cord from the BARMM family.

This developed as Mustapha “Eid” Kabalu, former spokesman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), filed on July 9 with the Supreme Court a “Petition for Certiorari, Prohibition, and Mandamus to Declare RA 12123 Unconstitutional” ((G.R. No. E-00158).

Supported by his legal counsel, lawyer Badrudin Mangindra, Kabalu acknowledged that if the High Court grants this petition, then the parliamentary polls will not be held this year.

Garcia made the assurance in a meeting recently at the Comelec Central Office in Intramuros, Manila, with MILF-Central Committee (MILF-CC) Chair Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim, president of the MILF’s political wing, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), MILF Peace Implementing Panel (PIP) Chair and UBJP Vice President for Central Mindanao Mohagher M. Iqbal, and other party officials during their visit.

Should it push through, the first regular elections in the Bangsamoro region would be a milestone in the blood-soaked annals of Central Mindanao, which is still in the process of coming out from decades of internecine conflict that had its primeval roots grew from the time of the Spanish conquistadors in the 1800s. It was the period when the sultans of Mindanao, the Moros (derived from “Moors”, the Muslims of Spain), fought the conquistadors, a war that lasted 400 years.

Recently, news reports had it that groups, personalities were attempting to move the political exercise to synchronize with the 2028 national elections. There were no names, though, cited in the media’s reports; no one came out, either, to admit being behind the attempts.

That was until Thursday, July 24, Kabalu, who, ironically is also seeking an MP seat as bet of the Al-Ittihad Mindanawe Darussalam-Ungaya Ku Kawagibu Bangsamoro (Al-Ittihad-UKB) Party, came out swinging, so to speak, during a press conference at Aristocrat Restaurant in Malate, Manila, Metro Manila.

Kabalu and Mangindra president over the press conference. The duo added quickly they are doing this on their own, with their own money, and that no one is behind them.

The Al-Ittihad-UKB parliamentary aspirant and his counsel announced that he filed a petition with the Supreme Court on July 9, seeking to declare R.A. No. 12123 “unconstitutional” because it allegedly violates the Constitution “for without plebiscite it substantially amended R.A. 11054”, also known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

R.A. No. 12123 is the act that postponed the parliamentary polls for the second time

Kabalu’s Petition for Certiorari, Prohibition and Mandamus, is a 79-page document that claimed R.A. No. 12123 violates the 1987 Constitution because of lack of plebiscite, breach of mandate on synchronized elections for local and national positions, the three-year term of elected MPs will be shortened, and Congress’s lack of power to defer the Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE) without the population’s consent.

He noted that the BOL is a product of decades of struggle for the right to self-determination for genuine autonomy and that it should not be amended without the Bangsamoro people’s consent.

The former MILF leader and now aspirant for an MP seat emphasized the significance of a judicial intervention to maintain and preserve peace and order in the Bangsamoro region, especially because the wounds from the recent elections are still fresh.

As he and Mangindra fielded questions from members of the media, Kabalu admitted that if their petition is granted by the High Tribunal, the parliamentary polls will not proceed.

Now, there are at least two personalities who came out and admitted that they want the parliamentary polls to be postponed and synchronized with the national elections in 2028.

Living in peace, Kabalu pointed out, is the only choice for the Bangsamoro, to develop themselves within the national development program of the government, saying that for him, “this can be achieved under a stable Organic Law and systematized and synchronized elections.”

He acknowledged that his petition “may result” in the postponement of the first parliamentary polls to May 2028, describing this as “but an effect of incidents of law”.

Kabalu and Mangindra said they are ready to withdraw from their party which is participating in the regional polls if so desired by party leaders.

In the meeting at the Comelec, Garcia assured Ebrahim that the parliamentary polls will proceed as scheduled.

The Comelec chair added the Comelec is fully prepared for the political exercise, saying that the Bangsamoro region has reached the point of having its own elected officials.

Ebrahim, Iqbal and other MILF and UBJP officials have also made clear in the past that they want the electoral exercise to push through so the BARMM officials will earn their mandate through the ballot.

In fact, the MILF Central Committee had also appealed to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives to proceed with it, and to not entertain calls for postponement.

Even BARMM interim Chief Minister Abdulraof A. Macacua also voiced his support for the holding of the first parliamentary polls, a landmark political exercise. Macacua is MILF chief of staff and UBJP secretary general.

BARMM Congress representatives also had expressed their support, among them Maguindanao del Sur Rep. Esmael “Datu Toto” Mangudadatu, Maguindanao del Norte/Cotabato City Rep. Bai Dimple Mastura, BARMM MP Baileng Mantawil, MP Atty. Rasol Mitmug, and others.

Flashback to the 1970s

Two guerilla organizations such as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the MILF waged war for the independence of Southern Philippines one after the other. The were discrimination, inequality, bias & prejudice against the Mindanao Muslims that culminated in several massacres of the Moros perpetrated by elements of the Philippine military and their ILAGA blood-thirsty militia.

To make a long story short, the Mindanao war that pitted Filipinos against Filipinos, after decades of protracted conflict, resulted in the forging of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement/1997 Final Peace Agreement (FPA) between the Philippine Government (GPH) and the MNLF, and then followed by the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CBA) between GPH and MILF.

The landmark accords brought stability, security, and peace to Mindanao in particular, and the whole Philippines in general. Still not the complete peace and stability and security everyone wants, but Mindanao is now presently enjoying respite from the wars, and the people are busy with their farm work, children are back to school, more neighborhoods seeing peace and order, generally.

In short, GPH through Congress established autonomous governance structures governed by the MNLF and the MILF one after the other. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for the MNLF; the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) for the MILF, which successfully sought a parliamentary government within the ambit of the national government.

Before the ARMM and BARMM, there was also the Regional Autonomous Government (RAG) of Region 12 covering Central Mindanao in 1980. It was led by Amelia Malaguiok, alias Commmader Ronnie of the MNLF, who returned to the fold of the law along with his field commanders.

In the CAB, one of its salient features during the transition phase of the BARMM is that governance is to be led by the MILF through its political wing, the UBJP, and this was adhered to starting in January 2019 until this year when the group lost its majority in the BTA.

May 2022 was supposed to be the first parliamentary polls, then reset to May 2025 to synchronized with the midterm National and Local Elections (NLE).

The supposed parliamentary elections stumbled through to the 2025 NLE, postponed by R.A No. 12123, amending R.A. No. 11054, the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

And so, the parliamentary elections were then re-scheduled for the second time to October 13, a postponement of five months.

Comelec: ‘We cannot forever’ for the parliament

Recall that Members of the Parliament (MPs) of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), BARMM officials then, and civil society organizations (CSOs) asked President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and Congress to hold the regional election in 2028, to be synchronized with the national polls.

But Marcos signed R.A. No. 12123, instead, prescribing only a five-month postponement with the elections to be conducted this year on October 13.

Barring any law stopping and resetting the polls for the third time, Garcia has repeatedly emphasized it will be conducted as scheduled this year. The electoral exercise with eight Comelec-accredited regional parties will give BARMM registered voters the opportunity to elect 73 MPs, seven short of the 80 MPs now serving in the transition governance supposed to be led by the MILF-UBJP.

In the transition phase the MILF is mandated to govern in a count of 41 to 39 MPs, giving the UBJP a hairline majority. But the President did not re-appoint or appoint seven MILF nominees, thus in the present configuration of the transition parliament the national government forms the majority with all nominees of the national government for MPs made through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU), an agency under the Office of the President (OP).

The situation in the regional parliament has become a contentious issue, with the highest policy-making body of the MILF, the Central Committee chaired by Ebrahim, voicing displeasure and discontent with the loss of its seven nominees, robbing the Moro Front, now a social movement, the transitional ruling majority.

Should the parliamentary polls proceed, the party with the most MPs, either through electoral votes, or striking alliance with other regional parties, will get the opportunity to choose the regular chief minister. It sure would be a much-contested political exercise three months from now.

On the other hand, there are those — Kabalu and Mangindra, at least — who do not want the election to push through, and instead want it to be synchronized with the 2028 national political exercise, which also was the original date that MPs and the then-BARMM officials had earnestly asked for. Marcos had another idea, though.

And now, as the poll body has enunciated time again, all roads lead to the October 13 polls. But that’s if attempts to reset it do not succeed. To reiterate, Garcia had earlier said that there is still no law stopping the electoral exercise.

But aside from Kabalu’s petition, another potential obstacle to the regional polls are the BTA bills on redistricting, though proponents failed to submit them for plenary proceedings, instead remanded to the two parliament committees for further scrutiny as moved by MP Zulfikar-Ali Sergio “Sol” Bayam, and approved by the majority.

MP Sol Bayam, a son of the late MNLF chief propagandist Hadji Akmad Bayam, appointed by the President this year as MP through OPAPRU, cited the need to take into consideration the latest census by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) as every parliamentary district requires 100,000 population to qualify.

Garcia gave the BARMM parliament until July 30 for the passage of the redistricting bills, warning the BTA parliament that “we cannot wait forever.” — EDD K.U. (√)

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