Regional residents unfazed by BARMM chief’s ouster from MILF
COTABATO CITY — Partisan blocs and local executives on Sunday, June 7, reassured recognition of the figurehead of the Bangsamoro government, Abdulrauf Macacua, and dismissed his suspension from his post in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as an internal only to the group.
In a resolution dated June 3, the MILF’s central committee relieved Macacua from being chief of its self-styled Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) after he took over the management of the region’s Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education from its minister then, Muhaquer Iqbal, a senior official of the front.
Macacua assumed full control of the MBHTE-BARMM on May 19 after the Commission on Audit reported the discovery of the alleged misuse of P2.2 billion worth of funds from its coffer shortly before last year’s May 12 synchronized local and national elections.
The MILF leadership, despite COA's findings that went viral on Facebook and in mainstream media, ordered Macacua not to remove Iqbal, who is superior to him in rank within the front, from his position as regional education minister.
Many of the local executives who expressed support on Sunday for Macacua as chief minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao after he was removed from the MILF are members of three big and influential regional political groups, Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, the Bangsamoro Party of the Moro National Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Federalist Party.
The three parties are among more than a dozen that the Commission on Elections had permitted to participate in the first ever September 14 parliamentary elections in the BARMM.
Senior officials of the three parties separately told reporters on Sunday that their continuing recognition of Macacua as BARMM’s chief minister is meant to sustain regional governance and should not be construed as hostility toward the MILF, which also has its United Bangsamoro Justice Party, which has candidates for the 80-seat regional parliament in the region's September 14 electoral exercise.
“Regional governance must go on unaffected by these issues. We are for peace and sustainable development in the autonomous region. Never shall we quarrel with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as we support Chief Minister Macacua's leadership of the autonomous region,” BARMM’s labor and employment minister, Muslimin Sema, chairman of the central committee of the Moro National Liberation Front, said.
Sema, president of the Bangsamoro Party, said he and his subordinates in the Ministry of Labor and Employment-BARMM, as well as MNLF members in the five provinces and three cities in the autonomous region, shall continue supporting Macacua as leader of the 80-seat parliament and as caretaker of all the ministries and support agencies under the Bangsamoro regional government.
The spokesperson of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, who is a member of BARMM's parliament, said they have instructed all members of their party to avoid talking senselessly about the issue or posting counterproductive opinions on Facebook regarding the rift between the MILF leadership and the region's chief minister.
"That is something like very `organic' to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and should not hamper governance by the regional government, whose present chief minister is a presidential appointee," Sinarimbo, chairman of the Cotabato City chapter of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, said.
The MILF and the MNLF, which have separate peace pacts with the national government, have representatives in the 80-member BARMM parliament and are jointly overseeing certain ministries and support agencies in the autonomous region. BARMM's creation in 2019 is a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the MILF, replacing then the 27-year less empowered, now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
First-term Vice Mayor Johair Madag of Cotabato City, where BARMM’s capitol is located, said he and his political supporters who voted for him during the May 12, 2025 local elections shall continue helping push forward the peace and development programs in all 37 barangays of the city under the regional government with Macacua at its helm.
Basilan Vice Gov. Hadjiman Salliman and his constituent mayor, Roderick Furigay of Lamitan City, have also separately announced that they will continue supporting Macacua, whose position as chief minister of BARMM is not in any way affected by his suspension from his post in the MILF.
“That is clear to us. He remains as chief minister of the Bangsamoro region and we recognize him as such,” Salliman said.
Leaders of the more than 2,000 members of the MILF, who joined the Bangsamoro Federalist Party during separate caucuses in Cotabato City and Shariff Saydona Mustapha, Maguindanao del Sur, in the past two weeks, were quoted in radio reports as saying that their central committee cannot remove Macacua from his office in the BARMM government, he being an appointee of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Macacua was appointed BARMM chief minister by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on March 3 last year, replacing his then superior in the MILF, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim.
Ebrahim, chairman of the MILF’s central committee, was appointed chief minister of BARMM in 2019 by then president Rodrigo Duterte.
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