The day after BARMM votes
The Philippines begins counting the votes cast yesterday in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Commentators will tell us who won, which parties gained ground, which clans prevailed, and what the results mean for the new parliament.
All of that matters. But the election itself may not be the most important thing that happened. The deeper story is the alternative “futures” opening before BARMM. A political settlement is never a single future. It is a branching point. After 17 years of negotiation, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the transition authority, and now the first regular parliamentary election have created a new political possibility. What that possibility becomes will depend on Bangsamoro institutions.
I see five possible futures. The first is the Administrative BARMM. Peace survives. Government institutions function. Roads are built, services improve, investments arrive and poverty gradually declines. But it would be a BARMM that administers autonomy without transforming what government can do.
The second is the Captured BARMM. Parties, clans, and political elites consolidate control over the new institutions. Elections continue, but patronage overwhelms participation, public resources become instruments of political power, and autonomy becomes a new arena for old practices. This is autonomy without democratization.
The third is the Learning BARMM. Government, universities, scientists, civil society, communities, and citizens begin forming an ecosystem that learns continuously. Research informs policy. Failed programs become experiments from which the government learns. Youth participate not merely as beneficiaries but as cocreators. Local knowledge meets scientific knowledge. BARMM develops the capacity to diagnose its own problems and adapt.
The fourth is the Generative BARMM. The Learning BARMM begins to teach the rest of the country. Its experiments in social-ecological governance, science-for-development, leadership formation, and asymmetric decentralization become laboratories for the Republic. BARMM does not merely benefit from autonomy. It changes how Filipinos think about governing a diverse country.
And there is a fifth: the Fragmented BARMM. Internal divisions deepen. Land disputes and clan conflicts persist. Political violence returns. Development disappoints. National distrust grows. The institutions created by the peace process fail to acquire enough legitimacy or capability to hold the experiment together. This is dismal, but it remains a possible future.
None of these futures is predetermined by yesterday’s vote. I am less interested in asking who won the election than in asking: What kind of political society will these winners build?
There are already positive signals pointing beyond the ballot box. Across BARMM, institutions are emerging whose purpose is not simply to administer government but to generate capacity: research agendas linking universities and ministries; science and technology programs; fisheries and environmental research; youth parliament and research initiatives; cultural archives and heritage programs; policy research within the Bangsamoro Parliament; civil-society monitoring; and connections between Bangsamoro institutions and national agencies. Taken together, these are more than projects. They may be the early infrastructure of a learning society.
The cultural signals are equally important. The kulintang says: we remember. The Moro protest song says: we resisted. The peace song says: we can reconcile. The Bangsamoro Hymn says: we have arrived. The Parliament says: we can govern. The research agenda says: we can learn. The Youth Parliament says: we will participate.
And the Sulu inclusion paradox says something even more difficult: the Bangsamoro future must remain plural. A political community cannot be genuinely democratic if it cannot accommodate disagreement, difference, and even separation.
The great test of BARMM, therefore, begins after the election. Can former revolutionaries become democratic political leaders? Can clans become less important than institutions? Can research influence budgets? Can development reach beyond Cotabato and regional centers? Can peace become justice, opportunity, and dignity? Can the government learn from failure rather than hide it?
And can the Philippines itself learn? For that is ultimately why BARMM matters to Filipinos. We have spent decades debating whether the Philippines should become federal. Perhaps we have asked the question backward. Before constitutionalizing a new system, we should discover what actually works. BARMM gives us that opportunity. Let it experiment. Let it measure. Let it learn. Let other regions learn from it. Then let the Republic decide what deserves to be replicated. That is federalism by discovery.
The election is therefore not the conclusion of the Bangsamoro experiment. It is its next test. The question is what BARMM might become—and whether, in becoming something new, it might teach the Philippines how to become something better.
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doyromero@gmail.com
