MNLF wants return of Sulu to BARMM’s territory

COTABATO CITY — Officials of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) have urged national lawmakers to pursue enabling legislation that would facilitate the return of Sulu to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

MNLF officials, among them Bangsamoro Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema, told reporters on Thursday, June 5, that Sulu’s having been removed from the core territory of BARMM by the Supreme Court has serious implications on the government’s separate peace compacts with the MNLF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The high tribunal's action was based on a petition by Sulu Gov. Hadji Abdusakur Mahail Tan, who was against the fusion of their province with the Bangsamoro region.

“Sulu is an integral component of the collective aspiration of the Moro people in Southern Philippines for progress and peace via self-governance,” Sema, who is chairman of the MNLF’s central committee, said.

Sema said Sulu is the virtual birthplace of the Moro uprising for self-rule, in the context of Philippine sovereignty. 

“We must not forget that what the MNLF fought for, first, was independence but agreed to autonomy. Now Sulu, which was the main flashpoint of the Mindanao secessionist conflict, was taken out from the Bangsamoro region,” Sema said.

Sema and other MNLF officials, among them Uttoh Salem Cutan, Faisal Karon and Adzfar Usman, who are members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament, BARMM Trade Minister Abu Amri Tadik and leaders of the front’s Lupah-Sug State Revolutionary Committee in Sulu had agreed to call on members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to cooperate in returning Sulu to the Bangsamoro region.

The consensus was reached during their dialogue on Monday, June 1, in Patikul town, Sulu. 

The Supreme Court removed Sulu from BARMM’s territory through a ruling in late 2024, a decision that saddened members of the MNLF, including elderly Moro men who had fought as young guerrillas against state forces in the 1970s.

The MNLF first demanded autonomy over 13 provinces in Mindanao during peace talks in the 1970s with then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. This demand was formalized in its first compact with the national government, the historic Tripoli Agreement signed on Dec. 23, 1976.

The agreement, crafted in Tripoli, Libya by government and MNLF negotiators, was brokered by the Libyan government, a member of the then Organization of Islamic Conference, which later became the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that also helped facilitate, through the Malaysian government, the two-decade tedious peace talks between the office of the Philippine president and the MILF. 

The government-MNLF 1976 Tripoli Agreement was used as main reference in the crafting by both sides of the Sept. 2, 1996 government-MNLF truce and, subsequently, the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro between the government and the MILF, which led to the replacement in 2019 of the then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more empowered BARMM.

 “It is hurting for us to see Sulu taken out from the Bangsamoro region’s area of coverage,” Usman said.

Karon said he is optimistic that members of the national legislature will focus attention on their sentiments. 

“This is all for peace and justice to all of those who perished in our struggle for self-rule during the early 1970s until the 1980s,” Karon said. He was still a young adolescent when he joined the MNLF and figured in deadly gunfights with government troops in seaside towns in what is now Sultan Kudarat province in Region 12.