Teachers welcome continued service of BARMM education minister

COTABATO CITY— School officials and local executives welcomed the reinstatement of the Bangsamoro education minister, one of over 30 officials who filed courtesy resignations last month amid a regional bureaucracy revamp.

Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua told reporters on Wednesday, July 16, that he had rejected the courtesy resignation of Muhaquer Iqbal, who has been serving as education minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao since 2019.

The BARMM, a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, was established in 2019, replacing the then 27-year-old, less empowered Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Iqbal and Macacua are both members of the central committee of the MILF.

“We are thankful to our chief minister for having rejected the courtesy resignation of Education Minister Iqbal,” Myra Borja Mangkabung, superintendent of schools in Lamitan City, said on Wednesday.

Officials and employees of the Ministry of Higher, Basic and Technical Education-BARMM in the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato had posted on their Facebook their appreciation of the retention of Iqbal as regional education minister.

Maguindanao del Norte Vice Gov. Marshall Sinsuat and Cotabato City Mayor Mohammad Ali Matabalao separately told reporters that they are happy with the reinstatement of Iqbal as education minister.

"We had wished for that. He should stay there and continue working for the educational advancement of the Muslim, Christian and the non-Moro indigenous communities in the Bangsamoro region," Matabalao said.

Iqbal, who was instrumental in the crafting of the MILF’s two peace compacts with the government, the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, is the seventh regional official Macacua had ordered to remain in their posts.

Health Minister Kadil Sinolinding Jr., whose courtesy resignation Macacua had earlier declined, said he is glad with Iqbal’s stay as education minister through a memorandum Macacua signed on Monday, July 14.

“I’m sure that the education programs of the MBHTE-BARMM that he had pioneered will continue, him being at the helm of the ministry,” the physician-ophthalmologist Sinolinding, also a concurrent member of the 80-Bangsamoro parliament, said.