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MANILA, February 8, 2026 (SDN) — After what many have suspected, the cat is finally out of the bag!
At least three members of the Parliament (MPs) of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) have now confirmed they want the 1st parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to be further delayed to May 8, 2028, that’s more than two years from now.
MPs John Anthony “Jet” Lim, the floor leader and spokesperson of the Parliament, lawyer Jose Lorena, and Khalid Ma-amor Hadji Abdullah, appeared to have appealed to Malacañang — meaning President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. — to defer the Bangsamoro region’s first regular political exercise.
With Lim’s involvement in the appeal for a 2028 BARMM polls to synchronize with the national elections, observers wonder if he was in fact speaking for the whole Parliament. And that’s where a big question needs an answer. Is it, or is it not?
Well, at least two MPs, Atty. Nabil Tan, senior deputy speaker, and Atty. Naguib G. Sinarimbo, chair of the Parliament’s Committee on Local Government, do not think so.
SDN Online News reached out to Tan and Sinarimbo today, Sunday evening.
“No, only three of them,” says Tan, senior deputy speaker. He added the Parliament is adjourned during the Ramadan season coming either February 17 or 18, depending on the crescent 🌙 moon’s appearance. “We will be back (in session) on April 7.”
Tan said he is OK with a September 2026 parliamentary polls.
“That’s their personal opinion,” Sinarimbo replies.
He adds further to emphasized his position. “We are committed to holding the election this year as proposed by Congress. With the passage of BAA (Bangsamoro Autonomy Act) Nos. 86 and 88, the legal framework for holding a successful Parliamentary Elections in the BARMM is complete,” Sinarimbo, former head of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG), assures.
At least one MP who did not want to be named told SDN he had long suspected the “intent and design” is for 2028, emphasizing that the earlier the regional political exercise is held is the better for the BARMM autonomy, the people, and democracy. “I am not the only one who has this suspicion and our suspicion is now a reality.”
The truth was bound to come out sooner than later, he said, without saying who has the design and intent for a 2028 regional polls.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia said the poll body can hold the regional polls in September.
It can be recalled the parliamentary polls had its first schedule in May 2022, then May 2025, then October 13, 2025, then March 30, 2026, as the Supreme Court and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) had sought.
But as the cookie crumbles, no schedule had fitted in everybody’s mindset. And also as unavoidable circumstances dictated. Not to mention there are many, likely, both within and without, who wanted the parliamentary polls not conducted at all in the near foreseeable future. As the saying goes, there are a thousand ways to skin a 🐔 chicken.
Over at the House of Representatives, the Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms had OK’d a measure setting the parliamentary polls on the second Monday of September and then after every three years.
At the Senate, Majority Leader Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri sponsored Senate Bill (SB) No. 1587 re-setting the region’s first regular polls to a final schedule.
“We have had three election postponements in the region thus far, and it is starting to feel like we have trapped our
selves in a loop,” the senator from Mindanao points out.
He said he feared the Bangsamoro region’s escalating violence is linked with the election’s repeated postponement. — EDD K. USMAN (©)
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To be updated.