Friday Mar, 29 2024 02:48:39 PM

Basilan leaders favor extension of ARMM-to-BARMM transition

BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 20:00 PM Sat Mar 6, 2021
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By: 
John M. Unson
The Bangsamoro regional capitol in Cotabato City. (File photo, John Unson)

COTABATO CITY --- The Basilan Sangguniang Panlalawigan endorsed the proposal for a three-year extension of the transition from the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to the infant Bangsamoro self-governing entity.

Gov. Jim Salliman said Saturday members of the Basilan SP passed last March 4 a resolution expressing favor for such extension. 

The move by the Basilan SP came a week after Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr. told Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, during a meeting in Cotabato City, that he and his constituent-provincial leaders are also in favor of an extension of the transition process.

A three-year extension for the setting up of all essential governance facets of BARMM shall necessitate the deferment of next year’s supposed first ever regional elections to 2025.

Salliman, now in his second term as Basilan governor, said Saturday the resolution of their provincial board was premised on consensus reached during recent dialogues with leaders of local sectors that he and Vice Gov. Yusop Alano have initiated.

“We support the peace process. We saw the need for an extension of the ARMM-to-BARMM transition term,” Salliman said.

The BARMM replaced the 29-year ARMM only in February 2019 following the ratification the month before of its charter, the Republic Act 11054, via a plebiscite in five southern provinces and three cities. 

Muslim and Christian peace advocacy blocs had earlier passed manifestos urging the House of Representatives and the Senate to reset to 2025 next year’s BARMM regional polls. 

Only by an act of the legislature can the 2021 BARMM political exercise be postponed to 2025.

Among those who have earlier announced favor for an extension of the ARMM-to-BARMM transition process were Gov. Nancy Catamco of North Cotabato in Administrative Region 12 and Mindanao’s top Catholic Church leader, Cardinal Orlando Quevedo.

Quevedo, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, whose pontifical base is in Rome, said the dividends of the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front will go to waste if the national government will not allow an extension of the ARMM-to-BARMM transition process.

Salliman said he is thankful to their provincial vice governor and all members of the Basilan SP for coming out with their March 4 resolution that he described as "so beneficial" to the government-MILF peace overture.

BARMM’s appointed chief minister, Ebrahim, is the chairman of the MILF’s central committee.

Salliman said he has been supporting the efforts of Malacañang and the MILF to put a negotiated closure to the now five-decade Moro secessionist issue even before he first got to the helm of the Basilan provincial government during the 2016 elections.

BARMM’s local government minister, lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, said Saturday they were elated with the Basilan SP’s having passed a resolution attuned to efforts by different southern sectors seeking an extension for three more years of the ARMM-to-BARMM transition process.

“The March 4 resolution of the Basilan Sangguniang Panlalawigan complements the efforts of various sectors in the region to have an extension of the transition process,” Sinarimbo said.

Maguindanao 2nd District Rep. Esmael Mangudadatu had earlier filed House Bill 8117 seeking the deferment of BARMM’s 2021 regional polls to 2025.

The BARMM covers the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Marawi, Lamitan and Cotabato, where its regional capitol is located.

The creation of the now 26-month BARMM was premised on two compacts between the government and the MILF --- the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro --- that both sides had reached during two decades of peace talks.

 

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