COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A defiant Mariam Mangudadatu has refused to take her oath as officer-in-charge (OICs) of the provincial government of Maguindanao del Sur, while one of her closest aides hinted that the governor was preparing to question her appointment by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. before the Supreme Court.

Mangudadatu has challenged Marcos to present the legal basis for appointing OICs for Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte, arguing that it went against Republic Act 11550, the 2021 law that divided the larger Maguindanao province into two separate political territories. 

Mangudadatu argued that Marcos cannot appoint OICs based on RA 11550 and that she and former Maguindanao vice governor Fatima Ainee Sinsuat automatically became the governors of the two provinces by operation of law.

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She said, “We do not know if he has been reading or has studied or did not adhere to the law. If ever, he can only show us what law he used in the case.”

Mangudadatu’s argument is based on the clause in Paragraph (d), Section 50 of RA 11559, which reads: “The incumbent governor of the present Province of Maguindanao shall remain as governor of the Province of Maguindanao del Sur.”

Another clause in the law provides that “The elective officials of the newly created provinces shall be elected on the second Monday of May 2022 national and local elections.” 

It added, however, that “if this Act is approved and ratified within six (6) months or more prior to the 2022 national and local elections, the vice governor and the next ranking elective member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of the present Province of Maguindanao, who are residents of the new Maguindanao del Norte shall assume as its acting governor and acting vice governor, respectively, and both shall continue to serve in office until their successors shall have been elected and qualified in the 2022 national and local elections.”

The law, signed by then-president Rodrigo Duterte in 2021, was ratified during a plebiscite in Maguindanao in September 2022, or four months after the last synchronized national and local elections.

Lawyer Cyrus Torreña, Mangudadatu’s provincial administrator, told Rappler on Tuesday, April 11 that the governor refused to take her oath as OIC governor and would seek the intervention of the Supreme Court unless Malacañang reconsidered its position.

Torreña said Marcos’s decision was “unacceptable” because Mangudadatu was elected governor by more than 300,000 Maguindanao voters during the 2022 elections, and it was difficult to comprehend how she could just be relegated to a mere OIC.

“I cannot advise the governor to accept the appointment as OIC,” said Torreña.

Torreña said they would only receive a copy of Mangudadatu’s appointment papers “if that is what the President would want us to do,” but they would go to court if Malacañang insisted on it.

Maguindanao del Norte OIC Governor Abdulraof Macacua, who took his oath before Marcos in Malacañang on April 5, brushed aside the Mangudadatu group’s challenge, adding that she can go to the Supreme Court if she really wanted to.

Macacua reported for work in a satellite office he established for Maguindanao del Norte in Cotabato City on Tuesday despite Mangudadatu’s objection. 

His appointment dislodged Sinsuat, Mangudadatu’s political ally, who assumed Maguindanao del Norte’s top post much earlier without Malacañang’s or the Bangsamoro regional government’s nod.

Mangudadatu said Marcos’ decision to appoint OICs, in effect, disenfranchised elected local officials.

She said, “There are laws that guarantee the terms of office of elected officials. [If that’s the case], we might as well throw all the laws into the garbage can.” – Rappler.com