Mangudadatu files bill resetting BARMM elections to 2025

 Maguindanao 2nd District Representative Esmael Mangudadatu. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MANGUDADATU'S OFFICE, MINDANAO EXPOSE’)

COTABATO CITY – Maguindanao 2nd District Rep. Esmael Mangudadatu has filed a bill in the House of Representatives seeking to move the elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) from 2022 to 2025. 

The proposed measure effectively seeks to extend the transition period for the BARMM set by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) from 2019 to 2022 for another three years.

“My House Bill 8117 was a product of committee hearings conducted and consultations,” said Mangudadatu, chair of the House Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity, in a statement Wednesday, December 2.

“There are a lot of things that need to be done. There are commitments that need to be acted upon,” he said, citing the provisions of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) about normalization and political tracks.

Mangudadatu said the current BARMM and the national government are yet to fully deliver the goods provided in the CAB and organic law.

The former three-termer Maguindanao governor believes that had it not for the Covid-19 pandemic, the foundation of BARMM shall have been laid down perfectly.

“The BARMM leadership was met by constraints and difficulties, with the pandemic as the major obstacle,” he said.

Mangudadatu said three years of transition was not an easy task for the current BARMM leaders due to the pandemic.

“The decommissioning and reintegration process takes time and effort, and it should be implemented perfectly because the government and the Bangsamoro people cannot afford to see BARMM fail,” he said.

Mangudadatu hopes to engage with the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), the government, and Bangsamoro Transition Authority-Intergovernmental Relations Board (BTA-IGRB) to make the Mindanao peace process succeed as expected by the Bangsamoro people.

“The national government and the BARMM remain as steadfast partners as they go about to finding for lasting resolutions to the past, present, and future concerns of the region and the Filipino nation as a whole,” Mangudadatu said. (EDWIN FERNANDEZ, PNA, MINDANAO EXPOSE’)