Christian leaders now campaigning for BOL ratification

COTABATO CITY- With Cardinal Orlando Quevedo and popular Christian politicians endorsing the Bangsamoro Organic Law, how can non-Muslims vote against it during the January 21 plebiscite?Officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front said Saturday they are thankful to Quevedo, Mayor Ramon Piang of Upi town in Maguindanao and Vice Mayor Roderick Furigay of Lamitan City for helping the MILF and Malacañang promote a peace initiative that would benefit southern Muslim, Christian and Lumad sectors.The MILF’s revolutionary figurehead, Hadji Murad Ebrahim, said the three of them are sources of encouragement for Christians to cast an affirmative vote during the January 21 plebiscite that would seal the fate of the BOL.There are anti-BOL blocs now using Facebook to scare non-Muslims, warning of persecution by the MILF once the group gets to the helm of a Bangsamoro regional entity once given an electoral imprimatur. These Christian leaders deserve the best of praises from the MILF. They are in the right direction, said Muhaquer Iqbal, the group’s top peace negotiator and a member of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.Iqbal said Saturday they are grateful to Quevedo, Piang and Furigay for endorsing the BOL, a product of two decades of peace talks between the government and the MILF.Quevedo, Mindanao’s top Catholic parochial leader, is a staunch supporter of the peace process, meant to put a negotiated closure to the Moro secessionist issue hounding Southern Philippines for five decades now.Piang, a chieftain in the indigenous non-Moro Teduray tribe, was former member of the government’s peace panel that negotiated with the MILF. We are campaigning hard for our people to vote in favor of the BOL during the January 21 plebiscite, he said Saturday via text message.Piang is a known political protégé of the now outgoing three-termer Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), both endorses of the BOL too.Once ratified via a plebiscite in its proposed core territory, the BOL, also known as the Republic Act 11054, will pave the way for ARMM’s replacement with an MILF-led Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM.The wife of Furigay, Rose, who is incumbent mayor of Lamitan City, is also campaigning for the BOL in all of the 45 barangays in Lamitan City, the capital of Basilan.The couple is also helping Hataman convince residents of Isabela City, Basilan’s former capital and still under Administrative Region 9, to vote for BOL’s approval during the referendum next month.Furigay said he will send a delegation to the miting de avance for the BOL campaign that Mangudadatu and Hataman are now organizing, to be held inside the 32-hectare ARMM government center in Cotabato City before the plebiscite day.Mangudadatu said mayors from across Maguindanao, which has 36 towns, and their constituent-barangay officials will participate in the activity. We will show to voters in the autonomous region that the Muslim, Christian and Lumad residents in the province are for the peaceful settlement of the now five-decade Moro rebellion, Mangudadatu said.Hataman, who delivered his last ulat sa bayan on Wednesday in Cotabato City, said he and members of his regional cabinet are now prepared for a transition from ARMM to BARMM.Hataman’s second term as chief executive of ARMM will end on June 30 next year.He is not aspiring for a third term to hasten the transition from the regional government to the incoming BARMM, to be managed by a transitory team of MILF leaders pending the election of its pioneer set of leaders. Because we believe that the BOL is the best solution to the Mindanao conflict, how can we not support it? It will benefit the Mindanaons, the people in Metro Manila, in the Visayas and in Luzon, Hataman said.Sammy Al-Mansour, secretary-general of the MILF’s virtually beginner United Bangsamoro Justice and Peace (UBJP) political party, said the manifested support of the Christians Quevedo, Piang and Furigay for the BOL will boost the confidence of non-Muslims on the measure.Besides the three of them, the Christian Eliseo Garcesa, Jr., who is mayor of Pigcawayan town in North Cotabato, has also been supporting the peace overture between Malacañang and the MILF.Garcesa has actively been helping facilitate pro-BOL forums in Pigcawayan.Besides the ARMM provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, the Commission on Elections shall also administer the plebiscite in several predominantly Moro barangays in North Cotabato and in parts of Lanao del Norte. We shall be forever grateful to these Christian leaders. We cannot thank them enough, Al-Mansour said on Saturday.