COTABATO CITY. With a pack of reporters in tow, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia flew into Cotabato City on a C-130 plane early morning on Monday, November 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,” Garcia said in an early morning press conference.
The BARMM elections will be historic. It is 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 former rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is currently leading a transition government.
The BARMM elections are also the first parliamentary elections in the country.
However, on the eve of the candidacy filing, Senate President Francis Escudero told a radio program he was going to file a bill to postpone the elections.
A transcript of Escudero’s radio interview circulated on the morning of November 4. He cited the Supreme Court ruling that removed Sulu from the BARMM.
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 BARMM.
Escudero said Malacañang also wanted the postponement. 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.
New breed of leaders
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.
Finally, at 10 a.m., a group of nominees arrived. Representatives of the Marawi-based Moro Ako Party, among them young professionals, arrived carrying 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 who mobbed him.
Moro Ako’s membership includes student leaders, youth organizations, and women organizations.
Taib is a co-founder 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’s bringing its agenda to the BARMM parliament instead.
“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. It will be 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.
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 they are confident that their candidates can win at least 41 seats in next year’s elections to secure a majority without forging coalitions with other parties.
If MILF is confident of winning majority seats in next year’s elections, should it support the postponement moves?
The postponement call puts MILF in an “awkward” position, said Ali.
He said MILF stands to benefit from the postponement of elections because the group is expected to remain in power.
It also stands to benefit from the scheduled conduct of the elections because the Supreme Court decision made Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan, the candidate of 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 SC 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, November 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 ruling removing Sulu from the BARMM cited the province’s no vote during the 2019 plebiscite to create BARMM.
The decision disrupted the region’s preparations for the 2025 polls, but the Comelec was ready to proceed. Following the Sulu ruling, the poll body quickly moved to postpone the candidacy filing from October 1-8 to November 4-9. It was meant to allow 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 does not believe that the SC decision excluding Sulu from BARMM warrants the postponement of the elections.
If Congress passes the postponement bill, he said there might be legal challenges. He cited the SC decision that provides for the primacy of the right of suffrage and another decision that provides for the synchronization of national and local elections.
It’s best to proceed with the elections next year, Bacani said. 🎬
In Cotabato City, the BEO, BARMM government, and the two major political parties told 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, Cotabato City chapter head of the Serbisyong Inklusibo Alyansang Progresibo (SIAP), a member of BGC.
Sinarimbo filed his candidacy for a district seat in Cotabato City on November 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. (LIST: BARMM political parties accredited to participate in the May 2025 parliamentary elections)
Elsewhere in the region on November 4, in a community inside 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 then will 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 election 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. — PCIJ.org