Former MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu joins group seeking new BARMM leaders

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines – One of the most prominent leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) before it signed a peace agreement with the government is now joining calls for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to appoint a new set of interim leaders for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Eid Kabalu was practically the face of the MILF at the height of its struggle for Bangsamoro self-determination until he severed his ties with the then-secessionist group, three years before it forged a peace deal with the government.

He resigned from the MILF and stopped serving as its spokesman in 2011, ahead of a move for his expulsion for supposedly seeking local political support so he would be named acting governor of the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Instead, then-president Benigno Aquino III named Mujiv Hataman, now Basilan representative.

On Wednesday, August 3, Kabalu openly declared his support for a group that calls itself the MILF-Salamat wing.

The group, named after the late MILF founder Hashim Salamat and led by expelled member and former commander Abdulfatah Delna, earlier asked Marcos to replace Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) interim officials with members of the Salamat wing.

Delna said MILF chairman and BARMM Interim Chief Minister Ahod Balawag “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim supported the presidential bid of Marcos’ strongest election opponent, then-vice president Leni Robredo.

Kabalu, now the political affairs chief of Delna’s group, said the BTA members’ terms of office expired on June 30, the day Marcos assumed the presidency.

“It would be for the best interest of the Mindanao peace process if the President already appointed new BTA members,” Kabalu said.

Marcos has been silent about the fate of Ebrahim and other interim BTA members although Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez’s first memorandum on June 30 declared vacant the government positions being held by appointed officials.

BARMM’s caretakers said Rodriguez’s memo did not apply to them.

“While the BTA was extended by law, it doesn’t include the terms of its members,” said Kabalu, who last served as a political affairs officer of BARMM Interim Parliament Member Midpantao Midtimbang.

Midtimbang terminated Kabalu’s services when he learned that the former MILF spokesman was the political affairs head of Delna’s group.

Ebrahim called on members of the MILF to abide by the collective decision and policy of the MILF Central Committee on the list of people recommended as BARMM caretakers.

The list includes Ebrahim as interim chief minister of the special Mindanao region.

Ebrahim said he received information from Malacañang that Marcos would make an announcement about the BARMM and BTA after he is done with the appointment of key officials of the national government.

He said it was clear in the Bangsamoro Organic Law that until the President appoints BTA members, the current interim officials of the BARMM would continue serving as the region’s caretakers.

Ebrahim earlier called Delna and his group “peace spoilers.”

But Kabalu said Ebrahim’s group should not see the MILF-Salamat wing as an enemy but as an ally that has been “trying to air grievances on certain policies of the MILF, as part of the democratic process.” – Rappler.com