The interim Bangsamoro Parliament has passed a resolution urging Congress to extend the transition period of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to June 2025 “to afford the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) sufficient period to fulfill its mandate.”

In passing Resolution No. 332, the Bangsamoro Parliament said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they did not have enough time to carry out the effective implementation of the transition, to include programs, projects, and services.

The transition will end on June 30, 2022.

“While the BTA has taken significant strides in its service as the interim government in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, the sheer weight of its mandate and the amount of work that it entails, coupled with shortfalls in resources and placed in the context of continued security threats , and further complicated by the effects of a lingering pandemic, the 3-year transition period is simply not enough to accomplish its targets,” the resolution said.

Member of Parliament Nabil Tan, former chairperson of the peace implementing panel under the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), asked if the reason for the extension is that the political and normalization provisions in the peace agreement have yet to be fully implemented.

It was more on the normalization aspect of the peace agreement, said Jose Lorena, one of the principal authors of the resolution. According to him, the normalization is a caveat for the political participation of the people.

Lorena said that if the normalization trust fund can be set up, “perhaps it can also help in the fast tracking of the formulation of the rehabilitation program under the Section 1 of the Article 14 [of RA 11054].”

He recalled a recent interview of BARMM Chief Minister Murad Ibrahim who said that those covered by the first phase of decommissioning have yet to receive fully the socioeconomic packages promised them as part of the decommissioning process.

“If the we want to fast track the normalization, we should be able to see that government has put forward the necessary funds for the rehabilitation,” said Lorena.

Mohagher Iqbal, a member of the Bangsamoro parliament and chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace implementing panel, said that the move is not a self-serving exercise, but it is “for our people.”

“Just imagine, 17 long years of negotiation, can we implement what has been in the law for just 3 years? he asked.

Iqbal said that it is part of their assertion that they have to complete what they started in the peace process.

Resolution No. 332, also cited resolutions passed by the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Tawi-Tawi Chapter, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Tawi-Tawi, and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Mindanao, in support of the extension of the transition phase. – Rappler.com