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MANILA, April 6, 2026 (SDN) — Officials, members, followers, and supporters of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) can now heave a sigh of relief.
In an En Banc Resolution, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) headed by Chairman George Erwin Garcia has saved the UBJP, the political wing and political party of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from becoming irrelevant, or even from oblivion.
MILF Chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim is also the president of the UBJP, which has been in existence many years longer than the other Regional Parliamentary Political Parties (RPPPs) the poll body had accredited and poised to participate in the scheduled first Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE) on September 14, 2026.
The BPE, unless once again waylaid on the way to the polling precincts, will mark the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s (BARMM) first regular polls for 80 seats of the regional Parliament. Once the regular members of the Parliament (MPs) shall have been elected, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the so-called Government of the Day, would cease to exist.
For seven years, the BTA has been running the Bangsamoro Government headed by an interim chief minister, which at first was Ebrahim, then replaced by Abdulraof A. Macacua, the MILF chief of staff, until the present.
Comelec En Banc denies Verified Oppositions
Well, good news for UBJP and its hordes of followers and believers, not to say its officials and members and supporters.
It’s because the Comelec has issued today an En Banc Resolution granting the MILF political party its “Verified Manifestation of Intent in Lieu of a Petition for Registration…as a Regional Parliamentary Political Party for purposes of participating in the 2026 BARMM-PE.”
This means the poll body has “denied” the “Verified Oppositions filed by Sahabudin Panambulan Usop and Gasanara M. Dibaraten” as they “failed to substantiate their allegations regarding the alleged financial linkages between IHH and UBJP.”
(For context, the IHH is a Turkiyé organization that funded the UBJP Regional Headquarters in Cotabato City.)
With the En Banc Resolution saving the UBJP from irrelevance, and even oblivion, the RPPP of the MILF can now participate and field candidates in the forthcoming parliamentary political exercise on September 14, 2026.
Of course, with the caveat that no more hit h would waylay the regional regular polls on the way to the voting precincts. — EDD K. USMAN (√)