BARMM, local execs welcome barangay, SK elections postponement

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September 27, 2026 | 4:21pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — For Bangsamoro regional officials and local executives, the reset to 2028 of this year’s supposed Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) can boost multi-sector efforts of reuniting community leaders and their constituents fragmented by the September 14 parliamentary polls in the autonomous region.

Naguib Sinarimbo, spokesperson of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, told reporters on Sunday, September 27, that the postponement by Congress of the 2026 BSKE elections will provide local executives and agencies of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao that have community peace and security programs enough time to address the partisan divides among barangay officials and their constituents caused by the recent BARMM electoral exercise.

The territory of BARMM encompasses three cities and more than a hundred towns in the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, some of which have clans that are locked in deep-seated political differences that have triggered deadly clashes.

“We in our party are glad about the postponement of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections because it will give us enough time to initiate the reconciliation of barangay officials and their followers who got separated by partisan activities related to the September 14 parliamentary elections,” said Sinarimbo, who was elected as representative of the 2^nd parliamentary district in Cotabato City during the September 14 BARMM polls.

Sinarimbo’s partymate, Zulfikar-Ali Bayam, one of the 16 members of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party elected as its bloc representative to the 80-seat parliament, said the resetting to November 13, 2028 of the BSKE elections augurs well with their planned peacebuilding programs in all of BARMM’s five provinces and three cities that they intend to implement as duly-mandated regional lawmakers.

“We want to foster political and religious and cultural solidarity among all of the Muslim, Christian and indigenous non-Moro barangay officials in the autonomous region and now we have enough time to enforce that plan, something good for the national government’s peace overture with the Moro communities,” Bayam said.

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr., a member of the BARMM Regional Peace and Order Council, had told reporters that the postponement of this year's BSKE gave local executives, the police and the military at least two years to secure the surrender, via backchannel talks, of remnants of the now defunct Dawlah Islamiya and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom fighters.

Adiong is one of the founders of the BARMM Grand Coalition Party that now has a bloc of six representatives to the regional parliament, elected during the September 14 elections.

It is known in BARMM that some rude politicians and barangay officials in the region use remaining members of the outlawed Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF, in exchange for money, to scare villagers supporting their rivals during electoral exercises.

“The local government units, the police and military now have sufficient time to address that as part of the effort to ensure safe and clean local and national and barangay elections in 2028. We are optimistic of the surrender soon of more members of these two terror groups” Adiong said.