‘Nothing is over until it’s over…’ (2)
Cotabato City—I am back here in the heartland of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to work with representatives of civil society groups working in this area for most of their lives. We will be reflecting on the “heart and soul” of the peace process—transitional justice, healing, and reconciliation (TJR).
It was also Mohagher Iqbal, now an elected member of the regular Parliament in the BARMM, who referred to TJR as the peace process’ heart and soul.
But for more than a decade after we submitted our report to the national government, no national law creating a national Transitional Justice Board has been enacted by the Philippine Congress.
About a month before the historic first-ever parliamentary elections in the BARMM, its transitional parliament—the Bangsamoro Transition Authority—passed the law creating a Bangsamoro Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission. However, pending the finalization of its Implementing Rules and Regulations, that law cannot be implemented immediately.
In brief, transitional justice refers to the processes through which countries that went through emblematic human rights abuses and other atrocities inflicted by their state security agents try to move from a period of armed conflict or authoritarian rule toward a future of functional, durable peace.
Underscoring the need for a meaningful and stringent TJR process in the Bangsamoro is imperative. There would have been no BARMM if not for the long and tedious peace process between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that started in the late 1990s.
And there would have been no BARMM parliamentary elections that had been conducted, albeit with a lot of challenges in keeping them the “most peaceful and honest” electoral exercise.
This is where we are now. The elected members of the first regular Bangsamoro parliament do not belong to one single political party that could be considered the majority. For an 80-member parliament, we need to see a political party garner more than 40 seats to be accorded the privilege of choosing the chief minister from among them.
But as I mentioned last week, the two dominant political parties—the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) of the MILF and the newcomer Bangsamoro Federalist Party (BFP)—garnered less than 40 seats, with 31 from BFP and 30 from UBJP. In parliamentary parlance, the elected members have created a “hung” Parliament, with no one party dominating.
This leads to the imperative of a coalition among the 78 elected members of Parliament and two members who were chosen by consensus among their colleagues in the Indigenous Political Structures to become the mandatory Non-Moro Indigenous Peoples’ (NMIP) representatives in the Bangsamoro Parliament.
At one point, several overeager supporters of the BFP and their allies claimed that a coalition has already been created among four political parties that included the two NMIP representatives.
It was at this point that Iqbal declared that it was too early to announce that a coalition already existed within the first two weeks of October. The BARMM Parliament is scheduled to take over as the new government on Oct. 30, 2026.
What Iqbal envisions is a truly inclusive coalition—a “rainbow” one that ensures all political parties become part of the decision-making process of electing a new chief minister. He suggested that even those parties that did not get a seat during the elections—like the two parties associated with the Moro National Liberation Front, the Mahardika and the Bangsamoro Party—should be considered in setting up the regular government in the Bangsamoro.
This is truly ideal. But it still depends on whether the key leaders of the other political parties will concede to the idea of a rainbow coalition.
However, if leaders of the diverse political parties think in the direction of pushing for the full implementation of the arduous peace process that has created the region, they should agree that such coalition is one step toward a workable unity and the establishment of a platform for durable peace in the region.
This is because it was the MILF that created the initial architecture of this peace process that is now being implemented, slowly and painstakingly, toward a closure of the final peace agreement that created the BARMM.
Since the provisions of the peace covenant that created the BARMM have not been fully implemented yet, and TJR is still a cloud that is seen but has not rained in terms of its full implementation, then whatever peace mechanisms that have been installed remain without a “heart and a soul.”
And the controversy over whoever becomes the leader of the new regular BARMM government is still not over until it’s over, as Iqbal has said.
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