Business groups, MNLF to help BARMM parliament boost economy

COTABATO CITY — Major business groups, peace-advocacy entities and the Moro National Liberation Front separately pledged support on Monday, November 2, for the socioeconomic objectives of the newly mandated Bangsamoro parliament, saying it is likely unlocking the region's investment potential.

The 80 members of the Bangsamoro parliament, elected during the region's September 14 parliamentary elections, held their inaugural session on Friday at the Bangsamoro regional capitol in Cotabato City.

Many communities in remote areas in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao continue to struggle with underdevelopment stemming from decades of secessionist conflict, which eased following the national government's separate peace agreements with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Lawyer and entrepreneur Ronald Hallid Torres, chairman of the Bangsamoro Business Council (BBC) and officials of its chapters across BARMM’s five provinces and three cities, separately told reporters on Monday that they welcomed the formation of the region's duly-mandated 80-member parliament under chief minister is Abdulraof Macacua.

All members of the interim parliament, including Macacua, who served from 2019 until the September 14 BARMM elections, were appointed by the president.

“Now we have an empowered parliament that can focus on legislations that can help us, in the business sector, make our economy grow to generate capital-intensive businesses, with capital inputs from local and foreign investors, which can provide employment for BARMM residents,” Dimacisil, also president of the multi-sector Regional Advisory Group of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said.

Members of the PRO-BAR advisory group, including lawyers from different BARMM ministries and support agencies, traditional Moro leaders and representatives from the Muslim and Christian religious communities, welcomed Friday's peaceful transition from the interim regional parliament to one composed of duly elected members.

Various organizations of Chinese merchants in Cotabato City also congratulated Macacua on his nomination as chief minister of the regular parliament.

MNLF chair Muslimin Sema, whose tenure as BARMM labor and employment minister under the interim parliament ended on Friday, said he and his companions in the front would cooperate in maintaining peace and order in their respective state-recognized strongholds in support of Macacua’s peace and development agenda.

"We don’t have a problem doing that, all for an enduring peace in BARMM. We shall support the peace and development initiatives of our now regular parliament for our region's economy to flourish,” Sema said.

Sema, a former three-term mayor of Cotabato City, said Macacua and his colleagues in the parliament could work together to attrack investors from member-states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to BARMM.

The OIC, composed of more than 50 Muslim-majority countries, including petroleum-exporting nations in the Middle East and North Africa, helped broker the 1996 final peace agreement between the government and the MNLF, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro between the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which paved the way for the replacement in 2019 of the then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with the more empowered BARMM.

Besides Sema, many other MNLF veterans, including Hatimil Hassan, a former member of the interim BARMM parliament; Gerry Salapuddin, a former Basilan governor and congressional representative and Hussein Mohammad, former mayor of Omar town in Sulu, had separately pledged their support for Macacua’s leadership of the Bangsamoro parliament.

Macacua was nominated as BARMM chief minister during the parliament’s inaugural session last Friday. As a chief minister, he will also oversee the operations of all ministries and support agencies under the BARMM regional government.