TAUSUGS played a major role in the effort to set up the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Deputy Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Nabil Tan said this weekend, following a series of forums held in Jolo, Sulu, as part of the preparations for the plebiscite on January 21, 2019, to ratify the law creating the region.
The Bangsamoro Organic Law, he said, is based on all the peace agreements between the government and the Moro fronts – the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – and reflects the aspirations of the Moro people for genuine political autonomy.
It is reassuring to hear these words from Tan and other Tausug leaders who are members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, in view of apprehensions that the BARMM, for which the MILF fought a long-running fight against government forces, may not have the same measure of support from the MNLF of Nur Misuari, a Tausug leader from Western Mindanao.
During the months that President Duterte talked with the MILF leaders on the proposed Bangsamoro region espoused by the MILF, he said he hoped to convince Misuari to join the talks – “so that if there are corrections or maybe additions or provisions that would not sit well with the Tausugs and the rest of the southern part of Mindanao, maybe we realize altogether the friction of the MILF, MNLF, and the rest of Mindanao.”
Misuari had served many years as governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), established during the administration of President Corazon Aquino as provided for in the 1987 Constitution. The ARMM will now be replaced by the BARMM upon ratification this January.
The people of five provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi, and the cities of Marawi, Lamitan, Cotabato, and Isabela, along with six towns in Lanao del Norte and 39 barangays in North Cotabato, Basilan, and Sulu are due to vote in the plebiscite.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, there are 3.45 million Muslims and around 320,000 Christians in the ARMM, who will make up the bulk of the population of the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. Last September, Moro and Christian religious leaders, along with leaders of the Moro revolutionary fronts, gathered in Davao City for a peace dialogue and signed a manifesto to make “inclusive peace and progress in the future Bangsamoro government an imperative undertaking so that no sector and community will be left out of the process.”
With all these expressions of support from the various groups that make up the Bangsamoro region, we look forward to a new era of peace and progress in this part of the country, which we all hope will go a long way in correcting the historical injustice the Moro people have suffered over the centuries.
