Pioneering political party of 52-year MNLF launched

DATU ODIN SINSUAT, Maguindanao — The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), in peace with the government since 1996, launched here Saturday its political party, something first since its inception in 1970.

The launching of the MNLF’s Bangsamoro Party (BAPA) here was graced by senior leaders of the front from Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao and from the four provinces in Region 12.

“We shall be active now in peaceful, participatory kind of politics to further our peace and development agenda in keeping with our September 2, 1996 peace agreement with the national government,” Muslimin Sema, chairman of the MNLF’s largest and most politically-active group, told reporters present in the event.

The symbolic rite was held at MNLF’s Camp Ebrahim Sema here, scene of deadly clashes between Moro guerillas and government security forces in the 1970s until the early 1980s.

Among the ranking MNLF officials who graced the activity here were three members from Basilan of the regional interim parliament of the infant Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao --- Hatimil Hassan, Muslimin Jakilan and Abdulmuhmin Mujahid, who is an Islamic theologian.

They all emphasized that their newly-launched BAPA shall be a strong supporter of the BARMM government, whose chief minister, Ahod Balawag, is chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The MNLF has its Sept. 2, 1996 peace accord with Malacañang, brokered by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of more than 50 Muslim countries, including petroleum exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa.

The MILF has two compacts with the national government, the 2021 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro. These paved the way for the replacement in 2019 of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more administratively-empowered BARMM.

Sema, a former three-term mayor of Cotabato City, said the BAPA shall be their vehicle for achieving the peace and development goals of their now 25-year final peace pact with the national government.

“Principled politics is the most sensible way of fostering peace, sustainable development and progress in the Bangsamoro communities in Mindanao. We don’t need firearms to show to the world that we are a community fighting for an identity, land, race and religion,” Sema, a full-blooded Maguindanaon, told reporters.

The MILF has its United Bangsamoro Justice Party, organized prior to the creation of BARMM via a plebiscite in early 2019 in areas covered then by the now defunct ARMM.

Hassan, an ethnic Yakan who is a senior member of the 80-seat BARMM parliament, said much has to be done yet to achieve the full implementation of the MNLF’s Sept. 2, 1996 peace pact with the national government.

He said they are optimistic that the newly-organized BAPA can hasten the process through peaceful political activities meant to expand the dividends of the government’s peace overture with the MNLF.