Bangsamoro peace deal on brink

The Bangsamoro political settlement is now “on the brink of collapse.”

That was the stark warning issued Thursday by the Climate Conflict Action (CCAA) and the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG), as they called for accountability, a safe and credible parliamentary election, and a renewed commitment from both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government.

In a statement sent to the DAILY TRIBUNE, CCAA said the promise of peace is slowly unraveling.

“Hope is under siege by betrayals from both sides,” the group said. “In less than a year, the old conflict divide between State and Non-State actors was upended by a serious divide within the MILF and the government.”

According to CCAA, the MILF itself recently revealed internal fractures among its core leaders, along with deepening tensions among its armed combatants.

At the same time, the group said, the peace implementation process is also showing visible cracks.

“Cooperation is dissolving into confrontation, as the gains of the past decade disintegrate before the eyes of the agreement’s authors and ardent promoters,” CCAA said.

The crisis, they added, did not come out of nowhere.

“The irony is that the past 12 months foretold this crisis to those who cared to listen.”

CCAA and IAG noted that as early as 18 August 2025, they had warned about growing horizontal conflicts — including clashes between rival armed groups within the MILF — and the reemergence of violent extremism.

They traced the spike in violence to several factors: the stalled decommissioning process, the continued circulation of a large number of illicit weapons, a political transition stuck in gridlock, and what they described as the inability — or unwillingness — of both parties to confront structural flaws in the peace agreement and the fragile institutions supporting it.

Part of the tension stems from the MILF’s unilateral suspension of the decommissioning process. The group has insisted that government efforts to dismantle private armies must move in tandem with the decommissioning of MILF combatants and weapons.

While CCAA and IAG said this demand “merits serious attention,” they stressed that nothing in the political settlement authorizes a unilateral moratorium as a legitimate response to the impasse.

They also pointed to a recent armed attack on a duly elected town mayor, carried out using a rocket-propelled grenade — a weapon that, they said, should have been among the first confiscated under the decommissioning program.

The delay in holding parliamentary elections has further complicated matters. If the Bangsamoro parliamentary polls are held alongside the 2028 national elections, the timeframe for newly elected officials to govern would be drastically shortened.

“Rather than fostering a legitimate and democratic mandate, a new impasse in the political transition is being engineered by those who wish to continue to reign without the right to rule,” CCAA said.

The group underscored that political legitimacy comes from the people’s mandate at the outset — not from how long someone stays in power.

Yet, they said, the State compromised this principle when it agreed to postpone the parliamentary elections in 2022 and again in 2025 in response to MILF demands.

In the end, CCAA and IAG said urgent steps must be taken to restore trust and uphold the commitments laid out in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the Bangsamoro Organic Law.

“No more deliberate attempts to undermine the agreement to appease any of the Parties,” the groups said. “Political transition — where policies, frameworks and intergovernmental relationships are built, clarified, and strengthened — should be prioritized.”