DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 09 February) – “Giving the vote to the people to choose their leaders is the logical succession, evolution, to the grant of self-rule to your land,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said as he urged Bangsamoro leaders to “show the world” that the first election of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in May 2025 will be “peaceful and … credible.”
“I urge all of you, and we will be by your side, to make this very historic election, this very historical and important event a success,” he said Thursday at the meeting of the Intergovernmental Relations Body (IGRB) of the National Government and Bangsamoro Government, the 17th since 2019 and the sixth since he assumed the Presidency on June 30, 2022.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. addresses the Intergovernmental Relations Board between the national government and the Bangsamoro government on 8 February 2024. (Photo courtesy of Presidential Communications Office)
“On this, let me be blunt that perhaps we must remind ourselves that we are now operating in different rules and that we cannot allow forces outside of the democratic process to deviate our dreams and our aspirations from a democratic process. Let us not allow even one single voter to be disenfranchised by violence, by intimidation, or by bribery. That is the job we have in front of us,” he said, adding that after the elections, “it will be a new chapter for BARMM.”
History has shown that elections in the Moro-dominated areas, particularly in the “hotspots,” have often been marred by violence and violations of electoral laws such as “flying” voters and vote-buying. In previous elections, the Moro-dominated region had been dubbed as a “vote bank” or “reservoir of votes” for a fee, for candidates seeking national posts.
Addressing the Bangsamoro leaders, the President said he is optimistic in facing the future because “you have prepared well. You are ripe, you are ready.”
He commended the peacekeepers present “for their untiring spadework, for building, out of the ashes of war, the magnificent edifice of peace that is BARMM, building it brick by brick.”
The BARMM was established in 2019 after RA 11054 or the Organic Law for the BARMM was ratified in a plebiscite.
Then President Rodrigo Duterte appointed 80 members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the body that would govern the BARMM during the three-year transition period that was supposed to have ended don June 30, 2022 but was extended until June 30, 2025. Under the peace agreement, the BTA is to be led by the MILF.
President Marcos appointed what is being referred to as BTA 2 in August 2022 and it had its inaugural session on September 15 that year.
Nur Misuari (L), founding chair of the Moro National Liberation Front with President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim, chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on 15 September 2022 at the inaugural session of the Bangsamoro Parliament in Cotabato City. MindaNews photo by CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS
He congratulated the BTA for passing the Bangsamoro Administrative Code, the Bangsamoro Civil Service Code, the Bangsamoro Education Code, the Bangsamoro Electoral Code, and the Bangsamoro Local Governance Code.
The BTA has yet to pass the Revenue Code and the Indigenous People’s Code.
Marcos said the codes are “major pillars in strengthening the rule of law, upon which peace is founded” and are the institutions “to which you will hold fast as you build your government and you bring out people to progress.”
“I would even venture to say that Bagong Pilipinas is incomplete without a Bangsamoro rising along and within it,” he said.
He said he joined the Bangsamoro in the observance that day of Lailatul Isra Wal Mi’raj or the “Night Journey and Ascension of Prophet Muhammad into heaven at a period in his life when he was facing intense hardship.”
A destiny to live in peace
He said the IGRB meeting, the sixth under his two-year old administration and the first this year, “reaffirms our shared commitment not just to peace, but to peace with progress.”
“It builds on the gains of the past, fueled by mutual trust, guided by lessons learned, and inspired by the many wins, which give us the confidence that our shared vision for the Bangsamoro will be fully realized,” he said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is flanked by Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim (to his left) and Bangsamoro Education Minister Mohagher Iqbal, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Relations Body(IGRB) for the Bangsamoro and Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, co-chair of the IGRB for the national government at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City on 8 February 2024. (Photo courtesy of Presidential Communications Office)
He said the activation of all seven mechanisms of the IGRB is important “not because of the deadlines that we have set for ourselves, but because a people battered by war for years, should not be denied their destiny to live in peace.”
Marcos said he was informed that the discussions during the meeting were frank and forthright, and that is good because “this democratic hallmark of finding common ground –through consensus, not conflict – is what also led to the rich harvest of Bangsamoro enacted laws.”
Recognition around the world
“The peace we are enjoying has not only won the hearts of our people, but recognition around the world,” Marcos said, citing among others, the assistance of Japan last November for 6.8 million dollars’ worth of construction equipment for road network improvement and disaster quick response operation in the BARMM and petroleum service contracts and coal operating contracts last July that would provide energy security.
“The painful truth is that a politically empowered people living in darkness is not fully empowered at all,” he said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. with members of the Intergovernmental Relations Body at the Philippine International Convention Center on 8 February 2024. (Photo courtesy of Presidential Communications Office)
He also mentioned the assistance of the United Nations, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the European Union in programs that strengthen governance institutions, public services, and financial administration.
He lauded the Bangsamoro Board of Investments for generating 3.3 billion pesos worth of investments in the last quarter of 2023 that were expected to provide employment for 1,927 workers.
From bloody tally of war to scoreboard of development
He said peace is “neither found in the documents we have exchanged, nor in the elegant prose of our agreements, nor in the minutes of these meetings” but in jobs created, schools opened, farms irrigated, new hospitals opened, roads constructed and businesses launched.
“There is only one true peace when the bloody tally of war is replaced with a scoreboard of development,” he said, stressing that that scoreboard would show that “peace has won, and the war is over.”
Marcos paid tribute to “those who perished during the long night, from all sides, brothers all, combatants and civilians, whose blood nourished the land so peace can finally bloom.”
“But above all, we owe this to our children, to our grandchildren, that the horrors and the harrows of the past must never visit them again; that as brothers and sisters united under one nation, we can forge a better future in a kinder society where opportunities reward hard work, dreams can come true, and peace with justice will reign,” he said.
“A stronger BARMM,” Marcos said, “means a stronger Mindanao, and a stronger Mindanao means a stronger Philippines, bringing us closer to achieving our agendas.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
