WestMinCom intensifies election security efforts in BARMM

COTABATO CITY — The military’s Western Mindanao Command has intensified peace and security dialogues with culturally diverse communities in certain areas to help prevent tensions from escalating among rival political groups ahead of the May 2025 elections.

The WestMinCom covers the Bangsamoro region’s Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi provinces and its three cities, Lamitan. Marawi and Cotabato. It also has jurisdiction over four provinces and four cities in Region 12 guarded by units of the Army's 6th Infantry Division led by Major Gen. Donald Gumiran. 

Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of WestMinCom, ordered on Thursday, April 10, the officials of  6th ID and its component brigades and the Navy’s 1st Marine Brigade that has personnel deployed in Maguindanao del Norte province in the Bangsamoro region to intensify their efforts in ensuring peaceful elections in areas that are under their watch via dialogues with traditional community elders, local executives and the Muslim and non-Muslim religious communities.

Nafarrete on Thursday presided over a peace and security conference with officers of different Army and Marine units in Central Mindanao at Camp Siongco in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, where the headquarters of the 6th ID is located.

The Commission on Elections had placed Datu Odin Sinsuat under its control after gunmen killed its election officer, the lawyer Maceda Lidasan Abo, and her husband in an ambush in the municipality just two weeks ago. Units of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region are still trying to put a closure on the gruesome incident.

“We have to be flexible and meticulous in formulating peace and security plans related to our mission of ensuring peaceful elections in areas that are under our jurisdiction,” Nafarrete said.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference, he expressed gratitude to local executives and religious leaders for supporting the 6th Infantry Division’s election security efforts.

Over the past nine months, units of the 6th ID have recovered more than 400 firearms and heavy weapons, including assault rifles, anti-tank rocket and grenade launchers, pistols, M60 and .30 caliber machine guns, and 60mm and 81mm mortars. These were voluntarily surrendered by supporters of rival political leaders in Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Cotabato City, and nearby towns in Cotabato province. The surrender was made in support of WestMinCom’s election security initiatives and in line with the Small Arms and Light Weapons Management Program, jointly implemented by the 6ID and Presidential Assistant on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity Carlito Galvez Jr.