BARMM officials commit support for Comelec election security thrusts

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  — The five governors in the Bangsamoro region and senior regional officials on Wednesday, August 26, assured to support efforts of the Commission on Elections to ensure safe and credible parliamentary polls on September 14 in their provinces, where there are election hotspots.

They relayed their commitments to Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia during Wednesday's multi-sector dialogue on the preparations for the September 14 Bangsamoro parliamentary elections at the headquarters of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous in Camp SK Pendatun in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte.

The activity, also attended by representatives from different political parties and regional police officials from Regions 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13, was jointly facilitated by Garcia, his subordinate-officials in the Bangsamoro region led by the lawyer Ray Sumalipao, Armed Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, the chief of the Philippine National Police, Lt. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. and Local Government Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla.

The five governors in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao present in the meeting, Tucao Mastura of Maguindanao del Norte, Ali Midtimbang of Maguindanao del Sur, Mamintal Adiong, Jr., of Lanao del Sur, Ysmael Ali of Tawi-Tawi, and Mujiv Hataman of Basilan, are senior members of the BARMM Regional Peace and Order Council, whose presiding chairperson is Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulrauf A. Macacua.

All five of them and Macacua, figurehead of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament and is also overseeing all ministries and support agencies of the BARMM government, had assured Garcia to support the Comelec, the police and the military’s joint election security missions.

PRO-BAR’s director, Police Brig. Gen. Christopher Abecia, said they need at least 5,000 more policemen and policewomen to secure, along with personnel of different military units under the Western Mindanao Command, the polling sites in BARMM’s five provinces and three cities on September 14.

“The regional police offices in other Mindanao regions will help us address that by providing us with personnel support, under the guidance of our national headquarters,” Abecia said.

He told reporters that there are at least 4,000 organic PRO-BAR personnel for election missions, but still need augmentation from regional police commands in southern regions.

Police and military officials present in the conference, among them Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commanding general of the Philippine Army and Army Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara of the Western Mindanao Command, had told reporters at the sidelines of the security meeting at Camp SK Pendatun that they are all set for the September 14 regional elections, the first ever since BARMM’s creation in 2019.

Adiong, who, as second-term Lanao del Sur governor, is also chairperson of their provincial peace and order council, told reporters that he and all officials of their regional political party, the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, whose members include more than 30 of the 39 mayors in their province, shall do their best to help secure polling sites on September 14.

“We can do that easily because our party is not an enemy of all the regional parties participating in this electoral exercise,” Adiong said.

An official of another partisan bloc, the lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, an incumbent member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament, said all of their Muslim candidates for the BARMM parliament are ready to swear over the Qur’an and the Holy Bible, for Christians, to abide by state election laws during the September 14 regional electoral exercise.

“We shall do our best to help make the elections peaceful and free from anomalies,” Sinarimbo, chairman of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party for Cotabato City, who also attended Wednesday's security conference at PRO-BAR’s headquarters, said.

In a text message to reporters, the president of the Bangsamoro Party of the Moro National Liberation Front, BARMM Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema, chairman of the MNLF, also pledged, on their party's behalf, to help prevent saboteurs from getting close to polling sites, in areas recognized by the government as MNLF bastions, during the election day.

"Our final peace agreement with the national government, the September 2, 1996 government-MNLF compact, compels us, MNLF members, to help secure the conduct of any state activity in our turf," Sema said.