September 7, 2025 – Manila
Former government negotiators who crafted the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) have issued a stark warning over what they described as a looming crisis in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), citing deepening fractures within the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the volatile political climate ahead of the first regular parliamentary elections on October 13.
In a statement released Sunday, the panel members—who represented the Philippine government during talks with the MILF—said they are “expressing utmost concern that the developments in the Bangsamoro will spiral out of control” if not urgently addressed.
The negotiators pointed out that while fears of electoral violence are real, the risks go beyond the usual clashes between political clans and candidates vying for the 73 seats in the Bangsamoro Parliament. They warned that divisions within the MILF, the government’s main peace partner, are now surfacing in ways that could destabilize both the organization and the wider region.
“During the negotiations, we held on to the firm belief that a solid negotiating partner is better than a weak and fractured one,” the panel said. “What we are seeing today is a fracture within the MILF… If there are external actors exacerbating these fractures and propping up one against the other, then the tensions are multiplied.”
The group cautioned that without a unified MILF leadership, ground forces could break into splinter commands, some turning to radicalism while others fall into criminal activity. Such a scenario, they said, would undermine the very foundations of the peace agreement, including the decommissioning of weapons and combatants under the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF).
The former negotiators—Miriam Coronel Ferrer, Senen Bacani, Yasmin Busran-Lao, Zenonida Brosas, and Anna Tarhata Basman—stressed that government should work to strengthen, not weaken, its peace partner. They called on both the administration and the MILF leadership to stop actions that could fuel further division.
“Implementing a peace agreement should be built on the trust and partnership that was fostered through the hard-won agreement. It should not be based on patronage,” the statement read.
The group urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to take decisive steps to prevent any escalation that could endanger the transition to an elected Bangsamoro Parliament and jeopardize the full implementation of the CAB.
“The President should be fully informed on the dynamics on the ground,” they said, underscoring that the fragile peace achieved in 2014 now faces its most serious test.