COTABATO CITY—With reporters in tow, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia flew into the city on a C-130 plane early Monday, Nov. 4, to witness the opening of the six-day filing of certificates of candidacy (CoCs) and manifestations of intent to participate (MIPs) in the May 2025 elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The small Bangsamoro Electoral Office (BEO), located inside the BARMM compound, erupted in a flurry of activities when he arrived. “Tuloy na tuloy ang halalan sa Bangsamoro. No less than the hierarchy of the Commission on Elections, the chairman is present,” he said in a press conference.
The BARMM elections will be historic for being the first regular elections since the new autonomous region was established in 2019 following a successful plebiscite that implemented a peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the former rebel group leading the transition government.
It will also be the first parliamentary elections in the country.
However, on the eve of the candidacy filing, Senate President Francis Escudero told a radio program that he was going to file a bill to postpone the elections, citing the Supreme Court ruling that removed Sulu from the BARMM. A transcript of his interview circulated on the morning of Nov. 4.
Sulu was supposed to have seven district seats in the 80-member parliament, but no decision has been made about those seats.
Escudero also cited the need to create a province and congressional districts for the newly created towns in the Special Geographic Area (SGA)—the 63 former North Cotabato villages that voted to join the BARMM.
Malacañang wanted the postponement, too, he said.
Among Bangsamoro stakeholders and observers, many mobile phones buzzed with speculation. The signals were clear, they told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ). The postponement call followed a meeting between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and governors in the BARMM. They believe it was a done, albeit last-minute, deal.
But the candidacy filing would continue, Garcia said, until and unless Marcos signs a law postponing the BARMM elections.
Major regional political parties
The anticipation and excitement that built up towards the candidacy filing have all but died down on Nov. 4. The major regional political parties, including the MILF’s United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), decided to file their MIPs at the end of the week instead.
At 10 a.m., a group of nominees arrived. Representatives of the Marawi-based Moro Ako Party, among them young professionals, came with a thick set of documents. It was the first regional political party to officially participate in next year’s elections. No other political party would file until the fourth day.
“We have lawyers, doctors, engineers, and other professionals,” Najeeb Taib, the party’s first nominee, told reporters.
Moro Ako’s membership includes student leaders, youth organizations, and women organizations.
Taib is a cofounder of the Moro Consensus Group, one of the civil society organizations that led a campaign for the compensation of victims of the 2017 Marawi siege. He once served as president of the Supreme Student Government of the Mindanao State University in Marawi.
Moro Ako previously joined the party-list elections but failed to win a seat. It is now bringing its agenda to the BARMM parliament.
“We have studied Bangsamoro Organic Law and there are a lot of provisions which are not yet utilized until now,” Taib told PCIJ. Personally, he said he wants to push for policies on the proper use of natural resources such as Lake Lanao because of its relevance as the source of electricity in the region.
The BARMM parliament will have 40 seats for regional party representatives on top of 32 seats for district representatives and eight seats for sectoral representatives.
Taib said they hope to win up to eight seats, equivalent to the allocation of one province in the parliament.
“Suntok sa buwan (It’s a long shot),” said Johaena Marcom of Marantao in Lanao del Sur, the party’s third nominee. But they have a legislative agenda that they hope the voters in the region can consider.
Approaching end of transition period
The filing period is supposed to be a signal of the approaching end of the transition period that followed the creation of BARMM in 2019.
The former MILF rebels who have ruled BARMM for five years will seek the approval of voters in the region through the political party they created, the UBJP.
The BARMM replaced the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). It gained wider powers and resources as a result of a peace agreement between the government and the MILF, which agreed to drop its secession bid in exchange for a political settlement.
After leading the region for six years, will voters keep them in power or replace them? The May 2025 vote is going to be a referendum on the MILF.
UBJP spokesperson Mojahirin Ali said his group is confident that its candidates can win at least 41 seats to secure a majority without forging coalitions with other parties.
If the MILF is confident of winning majority seats in next year’s elections, should it support the postponement moves? The postponement call puts it in an “awkward” position, said Ali.
Ali said the MILF stands to benefit from both the postponement of elections because the group is expected to remain in power.
Likewise, with the scheduled conduct of the elections because the Supreme Court decision made Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan, the candidate of the MILF’s political rival, BARMM Grand Coalition (BGC), ineligible to participate in the regional elections, Ali said.
The BARMM government said it will let Congress decide the matter.
“We understand the reasons why there is a push to reschedule the first parliamentary elections of the BARMM …. We leave it to the sound wisdom of both houses of Congress, the lower house and the upper house,” said BARMM Cabinet Secretary and spokesperson Asnin Pendatun.
The Bangsamoro Transition Authority earlier passed a resolution seeking to extend the transition to 2028, citing the Supreme Court ruling on Sulu. But this was led by non-MILF members in the parliament.
In Manila, the Senate promptly scheduled a committee hearing to deliberate on Escudero’s proposal for Thursday, Nov. 7. Local officials invited to the hearing disagreed on supporting the postponement.
“If Malacanang is the one calling for Congress to amend the organic law in order to postpone the elections, it will most probably happen,” said Benedicto Bacani, executive director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG).
Preparations proceed
The high court removed Sulu from the BARMM, citing the province’s no vote during the 2019 plebiscite to create the new autonomous region.
The decision disrupted the region’s preparations for the 2025 polls, but the Comelec was ready to proceed. It quickly moved to postpone the candidacy filing from Oct. 1-8 to Nov. 4-9. This allowed the political parties that will lose members from Sulu to be able to meet the 10,000 members’ requirement under the Bangsamoro Election Code.
Comelec made the right move, said Bacani. He said he does not believe that the Supreme Court’s decision warrants the postponement of the elections.
If Congress passes the postponement bill, he said there might be legal challenges. He cited the Supreme Court’s decisions on the primacy of the right of suffrage and the synchronization of national and local elections.
It is best to proceed with the elections next year, Bacani said.
In Cotabato City, the BEO, BARMM government and the two major political parties told the PCIJ they are ready to hold elections next year.
“We are all excited for the first BARMM parliamentary elections …. Everyone is already preparing for the filing. All of a sudden mayroon kang na-file na bill in the Senate resetting the elections. Alam ko lahat ng partido na-surprise naman talaga e,” said Naguib Sinarimbo, city chapter head of the Serbisyong Inklusibo Alyansang Progresibo (SIAP), a member of the BGC.
Sinarimbo filed his candidacy for a district seat in Cotabato City on Nov. 7.
Eight BARMM political parties were accredited to participate in next year’s elections as of this writing. Three others that were denied accreditation were under reconsideration.
Elsewhere in the region on Nov. 4, in a community inside the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Maguindanao Del Norte, a group of women gathered to learn how they’re going to cast their votes in the parliamentary elections.
Over the course of two hours, they learned that Bangsamoro voters will be given two ballots next year. One for the national and local elections, and another for the parliamentary elections.
There will be two questions in the ballot for the Bangsamoro elections: 1) Which political party they are voting for, and 2) Who among the candidates for district representatives would they like to represent their interests?
The sectoral representatives, including one seat for women, will be chosen in assemblies. They will also be elected in succeeding elections.
All the political party, district and sectoral representatives will make up the 80 members of the parliament, who will then elect the chief minister.
On a larger scale, Mariam Ali, executive director of the Mindanao Organizations of Social and Economic Progress (MOSEP), said they want to teach women that they can lead their communities.
“It’s important to do this because it will enable women to understand how crucial their participation in elections is. It’s important for them to make their voices heard and their choices known,” Ali said.
Comelec said it will need P1 billion to P3 billion to hold a separate election in the BARMM, referring to the costs of manual and automated elections in the region, respectively.
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