LITTLE has been heard about the Philippines' Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) since it came into being two years ago, with the 80-member Bangsamoro Transitional Authority under Chief Minister Al Haj Murad Ebrahim serving as its interim government.
The transition was set to last three years, that is, until elections to elect a new BARMM Parliament timed to coincide with national elections in May next year.
In contrast to the rest of the Philippines, BARMM is adopting a parliamentary system — not unlike ours—where its chief executive and the government he leads will not be directly elected, but picked from the elected parliamentary majority.
Unlike its preceding incarnation, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, and in particular under its flamboyant first governor, Nur Misuari, who apparently loved nothing better than being feted in foreign capitals like a visiting head of state, Murad and his team of ministers have been almost invisible, even within the Philippines.
There can be little doubt that the transitional government has been quietly going about its work, dealing with the nitty-gritty of governing — never a particularly strong suit for revolutionaries everywhere as they shed battle fatigues for executive suits.
BARMM Education Minister Mohagher Iqbal was reported in Philippine media last November saying that about 70 per cent of objectives set out under the implementing Bangsamoro Organic Law have yet to be accomplished, including such weighty matters as transitional justice, the disbanding of armed groups and organising the Bangsamoro police force.
The disruptions inevitably caused by the Covid-19 pandemic would have weighed heavily in BARMM, as elsewhere, for nearly the whole of 2020 and likely this year as well. Small wonder then that BARMM had requested for an extension of the transition phase for an additional three years, a request that requires the nod of the national legislature.
It has won the approval of President Rodrigo Duterte and a host of serving and previous national peace advisers. The international Third Party Monitoring Team, in a progress report on BARMM released in mid-December, has also noted that implementation of the Bangsamoro peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is "fundamentally on track", describing the establishment of BARMM as "a very big achievement", but also suggesting that some elements "require more time to complete".
Perhaps nowhere is the problematic nature of the political transition more apparent than in Cotabato City, the seat of the BARMM Parliament and therefore effectively serving as the region's capital. Despite a plebiscite vote in favour of being part of BARMM in 2019, it was only formally incorporated within the region last December and even so, its mayor who had campaigned against becoming part of BARMM vowed to continue resisting.
All the same, the interim BARMM government seems to have grand plans for the city to be a regional hub of Islamic financing as a spearhead for the region's economic development.
Ishak Mastura, who chairs the BARMM Board of Investments, hopes to entice Maybank (which already has a substantial footprint in Manila) to branch out to Cotabato through its Islamic banking arm, promising that BARMM will extend fiscal incentives, such as income-tax holidays and lowered tariffs for imported capital equipment.
BARMM will geta75 billion peso budget grant this year from the national government and further substantial financial grants for the Philippine military and international development assistance will likely also be injected directly into the regional economy.
Peace in Mindanao has been a long and arduous journey and sporadic incidents of armed violence still occurring represent only part of the humongous challenges to make this singular achievement sustainable in the long run.
Ultimately, this is only possible if the vast economic potentials of the region can be fairly quickly translated into concrete improvements in the daily lives of some of the poorest inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago.
Given the decades it took from peace negotiations to actual agreement, a three-year extension of the transition (and with it, a longer political respite) looks to be an eminently reasonable proposition.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak