Basilan officials support Comelec's BARMM election security thrusts

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August 6, 2026 | 6:44pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local executives in Basilan belonging to the Bangsamoro Federalist Party and their vice governor have pledged support to police and military efforts to ensure orderly September 14 Bangsamoro regional polls to disprove notions that their province is an election hotspot.

Basilan is one of the provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, whose territory also encompasses Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where its regional capitol is located.

Radio reports on Thursday, August 6, stated the local officials, the mayors Roderick Furigay of Lamitan City, Kaiser Hataman of Maluso, Jaydeefar Lajid of Al-Barka, Moner Manisan of Tabuan Lasa, Arsina Kahing Nano of Hadji Muhtamad, Arcam Istarul of Tipo-Tipo, Talib Pawaki of Mohammad Ajul, Jomar Maturan of Ungkaya Pukan, Nasser Abubakar of Lantawan, Vice Mayor Super Kalang of Tuburan and Vice Gov. Hadjiman Salliman, agreed, during a meeting in Isabela City, Basilan on Tuesday, to cooperate in ensuring safe and clean elections in their province on September 14.

The vice president of the Basilan chapter of the Philippine Councilors League, Alfarouck Alfad, a town councilor in Tabuan Lasa, and Suraija Reina Hataman, a candidate of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party for one of the parliamentary seats in the province, were also present in the peace dialogue.

They reportedly agreed then to fuse ranks and help push forward the election security missions in their province of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade, the Basilan Provincial Police Office and the Commission on Elections.

Bangsamoro Parliament Member Naguib Sinarimbo, regional spokesperson of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, told reporters on Thursday that their party mates in other BARMM provinces and in its three cities shall also assure, via public statements, of their commitment to abide by election laws during the September 14 first-ever regional polls in the autonomous region.

The  Bangsamoro Federalist Party, which has chapters in all of the provinces and cities in BARMM, is one of the political parties that the Comelec has allowed to field candidates for the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament.

"We in our party want the September 14 regional elections to be peaceful and clean," the lawyer Sinarimbo, Cotabato City chapter president of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, said. 

Officials of two other equally well-organized parties, the Bangsamoro Party of the Moro National Liberation Front, most known as the Bapa Party, and the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, separately told reporters on Thursday that their candidates for the region's lawmaking body are ready to sign peace covenants, along with rivals in other partisan blocs, manifesting their desire for safe and credible September 14 elections in BARMM.

“All of our members and supporters across the autonomous region want the first-ever parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro region to be written in history as one held peacefully and cleanly,” said the president of the Bapa Party, Regional Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema, chairman of the MNLF.

The MNLF forged a final peace pact with the government on September 2, 1996, brokered by the influential Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of more than 50 Muslim countries, including wealthy petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa.

Presently, the MNLF has appointed representatives to the 80-member BARMM parliament and is also helping oversee the public service thrusts of several ministries and support agencies under the autonomous regional government, whose operations center is in Cotabato City.