Sectors welcome Marcos' recognition of BARMM parliament bloc

COTABATO, Philippines — An influential peace-advocacy group on Friday, October 16, thanked President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for his prompt recognition of the newly-formed ruling 46-member bloc of elected members in the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament.

Representatives of the Bangsamoro Initiative for Peace, Progress and Solidarity (BIPPS) separately told reporters, during a dialogue in the Rosary Heights area in Cotabato City on Friday morning, that they are also grateful to President Marcos for reiterating his commitment to work hard, along with regional officials, in fostering peace and development in the autonomous region.

The BIPPS has members in the five provinces and three cities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The 46 lawmakers comprising the parliament’s newly organized ruling bloc, among them the interim regional chief minister Abdulraof Macacua, president of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, had pledged to focus on programs meant to foster progress in BARMM.

Macacua was elected representative of a parliamentary district covering barangays in Cotabato City and in Maguindanao del Norte province during the September 14 regional electoral exercise.

His tenure as interim chief minister of BARMM, as an appointee of President Marcos, shall end during their maiden session as duly-elected regional lawmakers on October 30.

The five-year term of the 80 members of the BARMM parliament elected during the September 14 first-ever BARMM parliamentary polls will start on October 30.

Copies of the president’s written statement appreciating the fusion of the 46 members of the BARMM parliament into a multi-party majority bloc were received by reporters in Cotabato City on Wednesday.

“We respect the parliament’s authority to determine its leadership in accordance with the Bangsamoro Organic Law,” President Marcos said in his official statement pertaining to the setting up of a ruling bloc in BARMM's 80-seat law-making body.

The Bangsamoro Organic Law, also known as Republic Act 11054, is the charter of the Bangsamoro region.

It was on Tuesday that the newly elected lawmakers met in Davao City and, there, organized their bloc, whose members include representatives to the parliament of the indigenous non-Moro communities in BARMM.

Five ranking representatives of the BIPPS, the known peace activists Rodjipay Mangulamas, Quraish Langcap, Bai Hannan Abie, Johaina Lu, Jain Emba and Badrodin Macmod, had each assured of their entity's support for the governance goals of the 46-member ruling bloc in the BARMM parliament.

They also called on the 46 lawmakers and their 34 other colleagues to cooperate in uniting, in the context of religious and cultural solidarity, BARMM’s culturally pluralistic Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities.

“We are optimistic that all of them shall work for the common good of all the communities in the Bangsamoro region,” Mangulamas, a Sharia lawyer, said.