The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM)’s first parliamentary elections, scheduled for September 14 after years of postponement, will complete one of the central political commitments under the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB): the transition from an appointed government to an elected one.
This milestone, however, will not mark the end of the peace process writ large.
The appointment in mid-July of a new chair of the Philippine Government Peace Implementing Panel illustrates why the implementation of the CAB remains an ongoing political process. After months without a permanent government counterpart to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a vacancy that had prompted the MILF to temporarily pause some peace process engagements, the appointment restored the principal bilateral mechanism responsible for implementing the CAB. More importantly, it signals that the difficult work of implementing the agreement will continue long after the ballots are counted.
Earlier this year, I argued that the elections would test the Bangsamoro peace process. That remains true, but just as important is the question of what comes after them. The remaining commitments under the CAB, including the completion of the decommissioning of combatants, the socioeconomic transformation of war camps, the dismantling of private armed groups, and transitional justice, still require sustained cooperation between the Philippine government and the MILF regardless of who wins the elections.
This challenge has become increasingly visible over recent months.
The MILF, long accustomed to operating as a relatively unified movement, has entered a period of genuine electoral competition. The United Bangsamoro Justice Party, led by many of the movement’s senior political leaders and peace negotiators, now competes against the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, which draws support from several former MILF commanders alongside established regional politicians. The Commission on Elections (COMELEC)’s recognition of the two parties as the region’s dominant majority and dominant minority political parties institutionalized the electoral competition that had emerged within the MILF itself.
None of these developments represents a failure of political normalization. Peace agreements are expected to transform armed opposition into democratic competition, and political differences are inevitable. The question is whether those differences continue to be managed through democratic institutions rather than through force of arms.
This question has become more pressing as the elections approach.
COMELEC has placed several areas in the BARMM under its highest category of election concern because of longstanding security risks. Recent localized attacks on military detachments have also prompted the Philippine government and the MILF, through the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH), to jointly condemn the violence, warning that it threatens not only public safety but also the gains of the peace process.
The MILF’s decision to temporarily pause its bilateral peace process engagements with the national government did not extend to the ceasefire architecture established under the CAB. The continued operation of peace implementing mechanisms such as the CCCH and the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group, therefore, demonstrates the MILF’s decision to preserve security cooperation with the Armed Forces of the Philippines despite growing strains in its political relationship with the national government.
Political tensions have also become more visible within Bangsamoro communities. Legal petitions on the constitutionality of the leadership and composition of the interim Bangsamoro government, parliamentary scrutiny of governance, and successive public rallies in Cotabato City framed respectively around anti-corruption and accountability and the faithful implementation of the CAB reflected concerns, both in BARMM and national arenas, about the political legitimacy of the transition.
As divisions within the MILF became more pronounced, governance and implementation of the peace agreement increasingly came to be associated with two factions of the movement: the interim Bangsamoro government, which exercised regional executive authority during the transition, and the MILF leadership, which remained the principal signatory to the peace agreement.
This emerging political divide also reshaped the narrative surrounding the Bangsamoro transition. For some local observers, the political messaging of both the national government and the interim Bangsamoro leadership increasingly framed the transition in terms of governance reforms and the forthcoming parliamentary elections rather than the continuing implementation of the CAB. While governance and elections are indispensable, such emphasis also risked reinforcing the view that the success of the Bangsamoro project would be measured primarily by governmental performance rather than by completion of the CAB that made the BARMM possible.
It was in this political environment that perceptions of national government involvement in the BARMM assumed greater significance. The issue was not Manila’s continued engagement in regional government’s affairs, which is inherent in the asymmetrical relationship between the national government and the BARMM established under the CAB, but whether that engagement was perceived to privilege governance and the electoral process over the continuing implementation of the peace agreement.
Such a distinction obscures the nature of the Bangsamoro transition. BARMM did not emerge independently of the peace process; it is one of its principal outcomes. Good governance and faithful implementation of the CAB should reinforce one another rather than being treated as competing priorities. The challenge now is to sustain the confidence necessary for the Philippine government and the MILF to carry the peace process through and beyond the elections.
This is why the appointment of a new Government Peace Implementing Panel chair is an important development.
Beyond filling a vacant position, the appointment restores a political counterpart for engagement with the MILF at a time when implementation has become more complex and confidence between the parties has come under greater strain. Mel Senen Sarmiento, who was appointed Secretary of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity (OPAPRU) in April, following leadership changes in the government’s peace office amid public criticism of his predecessor, now also chairs the Government Peace Implementing Panel for the Bangsamoro peace process. By vesting both responsibilities in a Cabinet Member, the Philippine government has linked responsibility for overseeing peace policy with its principal mechanism for engaging the MILF on implementation issues, projecting continuity and renewed political commitment to implementing the CAB.
Describing the arrangement, Sarmiento said it would provide “seamless alignment” between peace policy and implementation. His MILF counterpart, Mohagher Iqbal, offered an equally telling response: “He is a Cabinet Member: he can commit.” Civil society peace advocates also welcomed the appointment as an important step in restoring momentum to the implementation of the CAB, while emphasizing that its significance would largely depend on whether it translated into concrete progress on the CAB’s remaining commitments. These responses demonstrate the central reality of the Bangsamoro peace process: implementation of the CAB depends not only on institutions but also on confidence that those representing each party possess both the political authority and the political will to honor the commitments they made across the negotiating table.
Beyond issues like voter turnout and the absence of election-related violence, the success of the Bangsamoro’s first parliamentary elections should be judged by whether they leave behind sufficient trust for the Philippine government and the MILF to complete what remains unfinished under the CAB.
