GENERAL SANTOS CITY — The Bangsamoro government on Thursday refuted the pronouncement of Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero that members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) who filed their certificates of candidacy (COCs) for next year’s first regional parliamentary elections are deemed resigned from their posts.
Mohd Asnin Pendatun, Cabinet Secretary and spokesperson for the Bangsamoro government, took exemption to Escudero’s statement, citing precedents in at least two previous elections in the autonomous region.
Pendatun recalled that in the then Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), several officials who were appointed by then President Benigno Aquino III were not deemed resigned after they filed their COCs for the May 2013 elections.
The ARMM was scheduled to have an election in 2011, but Aquino extended it to 2013 simultaneous with the midterm national and local elections. He appointed officers in charge who eventually ran in the May 2013 elections, including then OIC (officer in charge) governor Mujiv Hataman.
READ: BARMM election code, IRR violate PH Constitution – Escudero
For the May 2022 elections, several appointed officials of the BTA, the interim body tasked to govern the Bangsamoro region, also ran in different elective positions but continued to perform their duties, Pendatun told a local radio station here.
“The Members of Parliament who filed their certificates of candidacy are not deemed resigned … because their appointments are political in nature,” the official said.
Not new
Pendatun played down Escudero’s pronouncement, saying “the issue is not new to the region,” reiterating the two precedents.
The 80-member BTA is led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), as mandated by the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the peace agreement signed by the government and the MILF in 2014 after 17 years of negotiations.
In 2019, Republic Act No. 11054, or the Organic Law for the BARMM was ratified during a plebiscite that paved the way for the creation of the Bangsamoro region, which is governed by the interim BTA.
Escudero said there were 35 BTA members who filed their COCs for the May 2025 elections and that they were already deemed resigned for doing so.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Escudero said the Bangsamoro Electoral Code and its implementing rules and regulations did not consider appointed officials who filed their COCs as “resigned,” a “clear violation of the constitution,” he said.