​Bangsamoro’s parliamentary election is a turning point

On Monday, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in the Philippines will hold its first parliamentary election since it was established in 2018. The vote will officially mark the end of the transition period under the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), an interim regional government appointed in 2019. The election is a significant milestone in the Bangsamoro struggle.

It is the outcome of decades of armed conflict and negotiations between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government of the Philippines. The vote will test the Philippine government’s commitment to the peace process and the MILF’s commitment to the democratic process. BARMM is located on Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippine Archipelago, and it covers roughly the territories inhabited by the Moro people, a native Muslim-majority group.

For centuries, the Moro enjoyed self-governance in independent states and resisted Spanish colonialism. Following the Philippines’s independence in 1946, they continued their struggle for self-determination. In 1989, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created by Manila to give some devolved rights to the Moro.

However, ARMM largely failed to address local grievances and demands due to its weak structural power. It was given limited autonomy in political and fiscal decision-making, but it did not manage to improve socioeconomic conditions in the region. The MILF continued the armed struggle.

In 2012, President Benigno Aquino III recognised the ARMM as a “failed experiment”. Under his administration, the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro was signed between the government and the MILF, paving the way for a new political entity. Six years later, under President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was promulgated.

This legislation granted the region greater fiscal autonomy, a regional government, a parliament, and a justice system. Then the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro was concluded to outline the mechanism of transition from ARMM to BARMM and set up the MILF-dominated BTA to lead it. All of this is culminating in the parliamentary election, which will determine the makeup of the region’s first legislative body.