Earn people’s trust, Garcia urges BARMM parliament

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Erwin Garcia has urged newly elected members of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Parliament to prove themselves worthy of the trust and mandate given to them by the people.

“It is my hope, and I believe the hope of all who worked toward this day, that the Members now taking their seats will prove worthy of the mandate placed in their hands, and that the institutions borne of struggle and negotiation will, in their keeping, deliver the peace and progress the Bangsamoro people have long awaited,” he said.

Garcia issued the call following the BARMM Parliament’s inaugural session on 30 October, during which Maguindanao del Norte 3rd District Representative Abdulraof Macacua was elected as the region’s first chief minister.

The Comelec chief said the commission was privileged to have taken part in the first parliamentary elections in BARMM, held on 14 September.

Garcia noted that the elections drew a record-breaking voter turnout, reflecting the Bangsamoro people’s determination to choose their representatives in a parliament where no single party holds a majority.

He said this situation calls on parliament members to govern through consensus and coalition-building, in keeping with the principles of the parliamentary system.

“The Commission’s part in this chapter ends with the proclamations. The Parliament’s now begins,” Garcia said.

He also reminded the newly elected officials that the autonomy embodied by the parliament did not begin with the 14 September elections or the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law in 2019.

Rather, he said, it was rooted in generations of struggle for homeland, identity and self-determination, marked by dispossession, conflict and sacrifice, and eventually advanced through the peace process, from the 1976 Tripoli Agreement to the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro.

Garcia said the path toward autonomy was made possible by the 1987 Constitution, which provides for autonomy in Muslim Mindanao within the framework of the Constitution and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic.

At the same time, he said, the Constitution recognizes the distinctive historical and cultural heritage and ways of life of the peoples of the region.