I was preparing my column for last week’s submission when I learned, the night before the deadline, that Pangalian Macaorao Balindong, former Speaker of the Bangsamoro Parliament, had passed away. News of his death stopped me in my tracks.

When our father passed away at the height of the pandemic, one of the very first to honor him was Speaker Balindong. His words were warm and kind — a quiet tribute that reached us when grief felt heavy and air was scarce. I did not know him personally; I was not familiar with his politics. Yet in that moment — and later, when I learned more about his life and saw the title of his 2021 biography, The Revolutionary Democrat — things began to make sense.

Since then, I had hoped to meet him. My mother would sometimes try to find him whenever she was in Cotabato. But fate never allowed it. All I ever gathered were stories — of his work, his service, his steady dedication to his people. I never had the chance to shake his hand, to say salamat for honoring my father in a time of loss, or simply to thank him for showing that Muslim leadership could be principled, patient and bridge-building.

Learning of his passing finally pushed me to understand the man behind those kind words. 

Pangalian Balindong was born on 1 January 1940 in Dapao, Pualas, Lanao del Sur. He studied political science and law at Manuel L. Quezon University, passed the bar in 1967, and later pursued graduate work in public administration at Mindanao State University.

In 2021, political scholar Prof. Edmund Tayao published The Revolutionary Democrat: The Life and Times of Pangalian M. Balindong — a title that now feels fully earned.

Balindong’s path wove law and peace advocacy with institution-building. He joined the Consultative Legal Panel during the 1977 RP–MNLF peace talks in Tripoli and served as a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. He later led in the ARMM Regional Legislative Assembly as majority floor leader and speaker, then represented Lanao del Sur’s 2nd District in the House of Representatives, where he became Deputy Speaker (2013–2016). 

He championed measures for Muslim autonomy and dignity — including early drafts of what would become the Bangsamoro Organic Law — and was appointed in 2018 to the Consultative Committee to Review the 1987 Constitution.

When the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) finally emerged, he became its first Speaker, guiding a young parliament through its formative years and earning unanimous reelection in 2022.

I write these details not as an endorsement of any political line, but as an act of recognition. At a time when our national memory feels short and public discourse grows noisy, leaders like Balindong remind us that institution-building is slow, patient work. He stood for Muslim-Filipino dignity while remaining deeply committed to the Philippine project. His life showed that democracy need not be abandoned to seek autonomy — it can be deepened and made more inclusive.

As a Filipino Muslim who has often wrestled with identity, governance, and the unfinished work of peace, I feel a quiet regret that I never met him. Yet I also feel gratitude — for his kindness when my family grieved, and for the doors he helped open for voices like ours to exist in public life without apology.

Pakassurgaan ka Allah. May Allah grant the late Speaker Pangalian M. Balindong the highest place in Jannah — and may we, the living, remember that progress is often built not by those who shout the loudest, but by those who stay, build, and believe long after the cameras move on.