From bullets to ballots: Once separatist MILF now gun for elective seats

COTABATO CITY —- Ali Tatak, a former fighter of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said the 2022 elections will be his first time ever to vote to choose municipal or provincial leaders.

He registered as voter in 2019 in Barangay Darapanan, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, the home-base of the once separatist MILF.

“As MILF member, I did not participate in any election. We were told now is our time to help choose our leaders because it is important for the peace process,” Tatak said in the vernacular in an interview outside Cotabato City.

Abdulatip, a 40-year old former MILF combatant and among the recently decommissioned fighters, said he voluntarily offered to be decommissioned because he was convinced both sides are sincere to end the Mindanao problem.

“The first electoral process I participated in was the plebiscite for BOL, next year will be my second time and this time I will be electing our leaders,” Abdulatip said in the vernacular.

The BOL is the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the charter of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“This is good, walang dadanak na dugo, di kailangang magpaputok ng baril, di kailangang may mga bakwit, ang kailangan ay pumili ng maayos para mapabuti ang buhay ng Bangsamoro,” he added.

“The world is watching us, they see the GPH-MILF peace process as model and there is no room for failure,” senior MILF leader Abdulraof Macacua said during party gathering early this year.

Macacua is secretary general of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) which the MILF organized as its electoral arm. He also helps run the BARMM as its executive secretary.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, BARMM minister of the interior and local governments, and Macacua have urged the electorate in next year’s polls to elect candidates with integrity, credibility and good service records for those seeking reelection.

Sinarimbo, who is UBJP’s deputy secretary general, said the UBJP has issued guidelines for its members to follow in choosing leaders.

“We guide our members how to correctly vote but did not dictate who to elect,” Sinarimbo said even as he advised the electorate “to reject politics of money for it will make the elected officials corrupt.”

He stated further that “corrupt and dishonest candidates, once elected, will recover all his expenses through corruption.”

“Dishonest candidates, once elected, will recover all his money used in buying votes through corruption in government,” he said.

BARMM electoral code

Sinarimbo said this is a situation that the proposed Bangsamoro Electoral Code hopes to address. The code has been completed and it set to be transmitted to the Bangsamoto Transition Authority (BTA) parliament for deliberation.

Among its salient features is the anti-dynasty provision like those in the local governance code.  He said the proposed electoral law prohibits “political butterflies.”

Another provision is no couple - husband and wife or father and son, mother and son/daughter are allowed to run for public office in same locality.

“What we are trying to avoid is nasa kamay lang ng iisang pamilya or clan yong isang local government unit. Like tatay mayor, misis vice mayor, mga anak council members.  What is allowed for example tatay or nanay town mayor, but the spouse or son or daughter are allowed to seek elective post in the province,” he said.

But for the 2022 polls, the UBJP is entering into alliances with political dynasties, especially in the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.

In Maguindanao, it endorsed the candidacy of incumbent Rep. Esmael Mangudadatu for governor, pitting him against incumbent governor Bai Mariam Sangki-Mangudadatu, the wife of an estranged cousin.

The UBJP also endorsed former Rep. Bai Sandra Sema who is gunning for vice gubernatorial post.

In Lanao del Sur, the UBJP struck an alliance with the local SIAP Party, in the process backing the reelection of Gov. Mamintal Alonto-Adiong.

The UBJP’s endorsement is also being sought by national politicians, especially for President.

BARMM interim Chief Minister Ahod Murad Ebrahim, who is president of the UBJP, said they are endorsing candidates who they believe are pursuing the same vision and agenda as theirs.

The 2022 elections, will therefore, be the MILF’s first formal foray into the battle for votes.

The UBJP

Abunawas Maslamama, an MILF official who carries the nom de guerre “Von Al-Haq,” stressed that the MILF carried guns not to kill but pursue a struggle for legitimate right to self-determination.

“We have political agenda - and that is to emancipate the political, cultural and socio-economic plight of our people from the bondage of deprivation and exploitation,” said Al Haq, now serving as deputy minister of the BARMM Ministry of Transportation and Communication.

These can be achieved through democratic process called election.  For the MILF to participate in Philippine politics, it must have a political arm – the UBJP.

For Al Haq, UBJP is a “political vehicle where we can entrust our development, progressive agenda for the Bangsamoro.”

UBJP is a principled political party which totally represent the voice of the broader populace and not any political and family clan.

Chief Minister Ebrahim has said that the UBJP is the MILF’s political wing which has its own goals and missions and anyone joining it must work toward achieving party goals – that is moral governance.

Ebrahim admitted that joining the political and democratic process of Philippine politics was a major challenge for them.

Corruption is built-in in government and for the MILF, moral governance is a means to change the system, to eradicate corruption. It can be achieved through the MILF’s advocacy for moral governance.

In previous interviews, Ebrahim said the MILF will govern BARMM without imposing Islamic governance but imposing moral virtues of Islam which is for all human kind, that is, moral governance.

After about 40 years of armed struggle in pursuit of full Islamic independence, MILF has agreed to a greater political autonomy and subscribe to democratic process, all in the name of peace.

For the MILF, the 1976 Tripoli Agreement, 1989 creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and 1996 GPH-MNLF final peace agreement were all considered failures. Thus, it talked peace separately with the central government to come up with a deal acceptable to Bangsamoro.

The 17 year GPH-MILF peace process ended with the 2014 peace deal between Manila and the MILF that made the revolutionary organization to transform from waging armed struggle to participating in democratic processes, like the election, in order to advance its political, economic and social aims.

With greater provisions on self-governance, the MILF agreed to a treaty better than previous agreements for southern Philippines. The Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) provided a new self-governing, new political entity – the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao - that replaced what it described as flawed autonomous set up.

The MILF has primarily three “modern” major goals – first, a law (BOL) that created the BARMM, second, the request for extension to sustain the gains that were crippled by intervening events after the BOL was ratified like the pandemic, and third is the ultimate goal to create a more peaceful, matured, united, inclusive and developed Moro society in southern Philippine through democratic process.

Part of the peace deal was for the MILF to put up its own political arm to join the country’s democratic process of electing leaders.

It was more than just compliance to the peace accord, it’s the MILF’s determination to pursue moral governance and to sustain the gains of the peace process after the implementation of the provisions of the peace deal had commenced.

During the first quarter of 2015, the members of the MILF, led by its leaders, started the first step of their participation in the country’s electoral process – that is the registration of MILF voters.

Skepticism was at its height since the conservatives saw it as step short of surrender.

But the late MILF vice chair for political affairs Ghadzali Jaafar had dismissed the pessimists’ observations by saying the MILF was convinced by the government’s sincerity thus it reciprocated with sincerity to move the peace process forward.

Since its foundation in 1977 after breaking from the Nur Misuari led MNLF, the Hashim Salamat-led MILF as an organization had avoided participating in the country’s electoral processes. 

“No iota of doubt when we started joining the democratic process by registering as voters,” Jaafar said of the registration.

Transition from fighter to voter

The registration for MILF fighters was first held inside Camp Darapanan, MILF stronghold, on March 7, 2015 or more than a month after the unfortunate Mamasapano massacre that almost annul the gains of 17 years of GPH-MILF peace negotiations.

The registration for MILF members is one of the steps in the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB).

Almost four years later and through its electoral arm, the UBJP, the MILF had actively participated in political exercise for the first time. 

It actively campaigned for the ratification of Bangsmaoro Organic Law (BOL).  The Commission on Elections said more than 150,000 former MILF fighters have registered and eventually voted for the BOL.

The result was overwhelming since the BOL’s ratification led to the inclusion of Cotabato City and 63 villages in North Cotabato.  (The results of the referendum in Cotabato City is under protest)