Anticipating September 2026 BARMM polls (2)

Cotabato City—Rumblings of discontent and eroding trust in the leaders of the fledgling autonomous region have been palpable for about a year or even longer, as many of my former colleagues here claim. Among the sources of these reactions was the prolonged period of the transition, originally scheduled to end in 2022, as provided for in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). The first regular Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections were supposed to be held in May 2022, to coincide with the presidential election.

On Oct. 28, 2021, then President Rodrigo Duterte signed the law that extended the transition period for another three years, to June 30, 2025, through Republic Act No. 11593. This extension also meant that the first-ever parliamentary elections in the region were to be postponed to May 2025, to be synchronized with the midterm elections. However, June 2025 came and went without a regional election in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Another bill passed by Congress and approved in the Senate, then later signed into law by President Marcos in early 2025, set the first parliamentary elections on Oct. 13, 2025. This law also extended the already extended transition, opening the floodgates to prevalent perceptions that this was done intentionally to benefit Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) members and other top appointive officials of the region.

As we all know, the October polls were also canceled due to a Supreme Court ruling. The BTA-passed law to distribute the districts assigned to Sulu was highly violative of the Constitution, national laws on elections, and the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) .

The national government is certainly not another passive party to the CAB. An agreement, especially one that lays down the guidelines for ensuring the integrity and strict implementation of its processes and procedures, is between two active and coequal partners. Whatever was agreed upon in the CAB and made formally through the enactment and ratification of the BOL should have been carried out, not unilaterally, but as agreed upon between the two active and coequal partners.

A unilateral action by one party is considered a violation, and another reason for confirming an age-old perception that the national government always has the upper hand in the peace negotiations that led to where the region is now.

Which is what happened within the last year or so. In March 2025, just barely seven months into the envisioned end of the transition by virtue of the law setting the first Bangsamoro parliamentary elections in October of 2025, the national government, through its local interlocutors, swooped down on the BARMM to demand the resignation or “stepping down” of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF’s) key leaders running the fledgling region.

It was a masterstroke of unilateral decision-making, allegedly due to voluminous reports of “massive corruption” attributed to the highest echelons of the MILF leadership. The interlocutors did not bring up “receipts” for their allegations. Considering the current leadership’s aversion toward being called out or threatened for corruption or other acts of malfeasance that could incarcerate them, both the former chief minister and his most trusted person in the MILF central committee acceded to Malacañang’s behest.

It was widely believed to be a ruse to put people in key leadership positions, including new appointees to become members of the interim Parliament, who are all willing to create a new political dynamic that perpetuates the rule of the regional political allies of President Marcos.

In addition, the national government also unilaterally removed sitting BTA members closely associated with the MILF leadership, and at least three of them were among the highly performing members of the interim Parliament. And they were all women. And these three women, two of whom are lawyers, were replaced by men who were perceived to be aligned with the new interim chief minister.

A week ago, all members of the BARMM leadership were surprised (shocked for some) that a known Malacañang-aligned top official was appointed the new Minister of the Interior and Local Government. The appointment is contentious not only because of its timing but also because the appointee is a former director of one of the offices of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (Opapru).

For the past few months, the MILF has expressed its strong assertion of having been divested of its right as a party to the agreement, and such a sentiment has been blamed largely on the unilateral actions of the national government, through the Opapru.

As we anticipate this historic moment in the region, we also brace ourselves for another game-changer that could mar this moment. But we hope it is not something that the current fissure within the MILF could lead to unprecedented negative outcomes. God forbid.

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