Thousands attend MILF's political party launching

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — Thousands of guerillas and supporters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front converged at Camp Darapanan on Wednesday to show force in the launching of the MILF's pioneering United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP).

The MILF already sought accreditation for the UBJP from the Commission on Elections to enable the party to pit candidates for local positions and elective posts in the upcoming Bangsamoro government during the 2016 electoral exercise.

Sammy Al-Mansour, UBJP secretary-general, said the gathering of  "volunteers" at Camp Darapanan is an initial decentralization stride meant to organize community-based partisan blocs that can help educate the public on peace and development objectives of the newly-formed political party.

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"This is the start of the MILF's evolution from an armed revolutionary group into a political organization that would continue struggling for peace and development in the homeland in another arena --- governance and politics," Al-Mansour said.

The MILF is upbeat on the creation of the Bangsamoro government via a legislative measure, the Bangsamoro Basic Law, which is now in Congress and is expected to be passed and ratified via a plebiscite by early 2015.

The bill's enactment into law will pave the way for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more administratively empowered, presumably MILF-led Bangsamoro government.

Former ARMM Vice Gov. Benjamin Loong and several Tausog leaders from the island province of Sulu were among the personalities that graced the political party's first conclave at Camp Darapanan, the group's bastion in Sultan Kudarat town.

Loong is a younger sibling of incumbent Sulu Rep. Tupay Loong, a member of the 75-member House committee handling the draft Bangsamoro bill.

Mujiv Hataman, ARMM's incumbent chief executive, said he is elated with the MILF's entry into politics to pursue its development agenda for Mindanao's Moro communities.

"That's a move worthy of our support, far from being bloody and disastrous," said Hataman, even as the creation of the Bangsamoro government could boot him out of power.

Hataman said he has ordered the ARMM's police command to help secure the gathering of the UBJP volunteers at Camp Darapanan through the joint government-MILF ceasefire coordinating committee.

The ARMM covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

The ARMM provinces will form part of the central core territory of the proposed Bangsamoro government, whose creation is part of the final peace deal between the government and the MILF, the March 27, 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.