Thousands flock to BARMM capitol in support of new chief minister

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Thousands of well-wishers converged at the 32-hectare capitol of the Bangsamoro government in an uptown area in this city on Thursday, March 20, to witness the formal assumption to office of the new chief minister of the autonomous region.

Abdulrauf Macacua, chief of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces-Moro Islamic Liberation Front, was appointed as chief minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao just two weeks ago by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., replacing Ahod Balawag Ebrahim, the chairman of the MILF’s central committee.

Police officials, barangay leaders and chiefs of government emergency teams deployed in the surroundings of the symbolic event placed at no fewer than 8,000 their estimate of the MILF members and local government officials from across BARMM who gathered at the regional capitol on Thursday, Macacua's first day in office.

Among them were representatives of Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities in BARMM’s adjoining Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces.

Macacua was acting governor of the newly-created Maguindanao del Norte province prior to his designation as BARMM chief minister by President Marcos.

A big group of Moro National Liberation Front members, whose leaders are helping the MILF manage the now five-year BARMM government, also appeared to show their recognition of Macacua as the new figurehead of the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament.

“The new chief minister of the Bangsamoro region is facing a magnitude of challenges related to regional governance. We are sincerely committed to help him overcome that. We are a team,” the chairman of the MNLF, Muslimin Gampong Sema, who is Bangsamoro labor and employment minister, said.

Sema said they are certain that Macacua will sustain the partnership of the MILF-led BARMM government and the MNLF in furthering peace and sustainable development in all of the five provinces and three cities in the Bangsamoro region.

The MNLF forged on Sept. 2, 1996 a final peace agreement with the national government that ended its bloody quest, which started in 1973, for self-governance in southern Moro areas.

The MILF, where Macacua and his predecessor, Ebrahim, both belong, crafted in 2014, along with government negotiators, the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, a product of 22 years of peace talks that paved the way for the replacement in 2019 of the then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more administratively and politically-empowered BARMM.