COTABATO CITY –— Bangsamoro Parliament member Abdullah Hashim strongly condemns the emergence of the so-called MILF Salamat Wing Faction with the aim to sow intrigue to divide the ranks of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
Hashim, son of martyred MILF founder Hashim Salamat recently appealed to everyone not to use his father’s name “to sow political chaos and destroy the fragile peace that we are beginning to attain, under the MILF-led BARMM (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.”
“Our father’s work and legacy have always been to work for the common good of the Bangsamoro and Muslim Ummah (community), Hashim said. It is a great disservice to his legacy and an insult to his family to use his name to sow division, which could lead to us furthering away from the promise of peace,” he said in a statement.
A “political statement of MILF-Salamat wing” dated July 18 and signed by Shaykh AbdulFatah Saleh Delna, the group’s ad hoc chair, said their group, which supported Marcos for President, is “gaining ground in the Bangsamoro region.”
Dilna claims they are “not a faction or a breakaway group” but MILF members, he said, they supported the candidacy of Marcos and is urging him to appoint from their ranks new BTA members and ministers of the Bangsamoro region.
Republic Act 11054 or the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the enabling law of the 2014 peace agreement, provides for the appointment of an 80-member MILF-led BTA, the body tasked to govern the transition period for the Bangsamoro government initially until June 30, 2022.
“We are bona fide and legitimate members and officials of the MILF and are trusted persons of the late Chairman Salamat Hashim. We maintain that we are not a breakaway group or that sort,” Delna said in the statement.
Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, Bangsamoro Government spokesperson and concurrent Minister of the Interior and Local Government, said Delna was “suspended because he let his son, Saad Delna, run for Mayor of Mangudadatu under the party of (then Sultan Kudarat Governor Suharto) “Teng” Mangudadatu. Fredddie, brother of former Maguindanao 2nd District Congressman Toto Mangudatatu won the mayoralty race in said town.
Sinarimbo said “the emergence of the MILF-Salamat Wing was borne out of their vested interests to lord it over the Bangsamoro region.”“We see it as a continuing effort by the enemies of peace to sow intrigue and divisions so that their personal political agenda, which is to hijack the peace process by taking over the BARMM government would succeed,” he told MindaNews.
“We are, however, confident that it will fail just like the many occasions they have tried but failed to spoil the peace in the Bangsamoro,” he added.
“I oppose, disagree, and disavow the use of our father’s name to endanger the peace and progress, not to mention the organization he and countless others gave their lives to protect and to establish,” MP Hashim said.
The MILF and Bangsamoro government officials led by Ebrahim, commemorated the 19th anniversary of the martyrdom of Salamat Hashim at Camp Rajahmuja in Pikit, North Cotabato on July 13, a Mindanews report said Saturday.
