Thousands join MILF political party’s Sulu sortie

COTABATO CITY — Thousands of Sulu residents on Sunday joined the first sortie in the province of the political party of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, now preparing for the first parliamentary elections in the autonomous region next year.

The chief minister of the Bangsamoro region, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim, who is also president of the MILF’s United Bangsamoro Justice Party, and senior officials and members of the bloc from across Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, led the activity, held in the campus of the Notre Dame of Jolo College.

Heads of different regional agencies in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also joined the gathering, where UBJP officials talked about the need for the continuation of the present BARMM administration's peace and development initiatives needed in putting closure to the Moro issue hounding Mindanao for six decades now.

The MILF’s UBJP party has been registered with the Commission on Elections as a regional political party, to pit favored bets for the 80 seats in the regional parliament during the 2025 elections.

The creation of BARMM, which replaced via a referendum in 2019 the then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was premised on a peace compact between Malacañang and the MILF that both sides had reached after 22 years of negotiation assisted by member-states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a confluence of more than 50 Muslim countries, including wealthy petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa.

Police and military officials, who provided security support, and Tausug local executives estimated the residents who participated in Sunday’s UBJP engagement in Jolo, the seat of the Sulu provincial government, at 50,000.