Hashim’s kin slam use of MILF founder’s name to sow division

Salamat Hashim (Photo from the Bangsaoro Facebook page)

ISULAN, Sultan Kudarat, Philippines — The family of the late sheik Salamat Hashim, founding chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), slammed on Saturday the emergence of the so-called Salamat Wing within the former rebel group, who wanted to become members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA).

Parliament Member Abdullah Hashim, son of the MILF founder, said the family strongly condemned the use of the late Moro revolutionary’s name in sowing intrigues to divide the ranks of the MILF.

Hashim said the creation of the MILF Salamat Wing could also put at risk the peace deal that the government and the MILF signed in 2014 after 17 years of negotiations.

“Our father’s work and legacy have always been for the good of the Bangsamoro and Muslim Ummah (community). It is a great disservice to his legacy and an insult to his family to use his name to sow division, which could lead us away from the promise of peace,” he said in a statement.

‘Imaginary’

The MILF Salamat Wing, in a statement last week signed by Shaykh Abdulfatah Saleh Delna, the group’s ad hoc chair, said that an “imaginary Salamat Wing” within the MILF had been gaining ground in the Bangsamoro region.

The group, who admitted to supporting the candidacy of now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., urged the new chief executive to appoint new BTA members and ministers of the Bangsamoro region from among their ranks.

The BTA is an 80-member body tasked to govern the transition period for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) government until 2025. The body, composed of 41 members nominated by the MILF and 39 members nominated by the government, is led and dominated by the MILF as mandated by Republic Act No. 11054, or the Organic Law for the BARMM.

Upon the creation of the BARMM in 2019, MILF chair Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim has been designated interim chief minister.

The stint of the BTA members was to end on June 30. But in October 2021, then President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act No. 11593, which resets the first regular elections in the Bangsamoro region from 2022 to 2025, extending the term of the BTA for another three years.

Section 2 of the law states that “during the extension of the transition period, the BTA shall continue as the interim government in the BARMM, provided, however, that the president may appoint the 80 new interim members of the BTA who shall serve up to June 30, 2025, or until their successors shall have been elected and qualified.”

The MILF Salamat Wing urged Marcos to appoint the new BTA members from its ranks, pointing out that the MILF’s political party, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party, supported the presidential bid of former Vice President Leni Robredo.

“We are bona fide and legitimate members and officials of the MILF and are trusted persons of the late chair Salamat Hashim. We maintain that we are not a breakaway group or [any of] the sort,” Delna said in the statement.

Vested interest

Bangsamoro government spokesperson Naguib Sinarimbo, a lawyer, 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 intrigues 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 the Inquirer on Saturday.

“We are, however, confident that it will fail just like the many occasions [in the past when] they tried but failed to spoil the peace in the Bangsamoro,” he added.

Hashim said the family would not allow the use of their father’s name to disrupt the peace and progress that the BARMM had been reaping lately, “not to mention the organization that he and countless others gave their lives to protect and to establish,” he added, referring to the MILF.

On July 13, the MILF and BARMM officials led by Ebrahim commemorated the 19th death anniversary of Salamat Hashim at Camp Rajahmuja in Pikit, Cotabato province.

Hashim 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.”

He also rallied the people for their continuing support for the BARMM and the MILF under the leadership of Ebrahim. Hashim said his father had personally chosen Ebrahim as the most qualified to be his successor.

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