New Bangsamoro speaker elected

COTABATO CITY — Members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament in a unanimous vote on Tuesday elected Mohammad S. Yacob as its new speaker, succeeding 85-year-old Maranao lawyer Pangalian M. Balindong, who passed away early this month.

Members and the figurehead of the parliament, Chief Minister Abdulraof A. Macacua, confirmed on Wednesday, Mr. Yacob, who had studied Sharia jurisprudence in the International Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia, was nominated speaker and voted for unanimously on Tuesday by regional lawmakers.

Mr. Macacua and Mr. Yacob are both senior officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Bangsamoro parliament members Sittie Fahanie U. Oyod, Baintan A. Ampatuan and Kadil M. Sinolinding, Jr., separately said on Wednesday morning that they will cooperate with Mr. Yacob’s peace and development agenda as speaker.

“We shall extend to him the same support we extended to our first ever, pioneer speaker, who passed away early this month,” said Mr. Sinolinding, who is also BARMM’s Health minister in concurrent capacity.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which has representatives in the Bangsamoro parliament and is helping MILF officials manage some of the agencies under the Bangsamoro government, also pledged support for the speakership of Mr. Yacob.

“We shall help him and our chief minister keep the regional government’s peace and development efforts in the autonomous region going,” Bangsamoro Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin G. Sema, who is chairman of the MNLF’s central committee, said.

In an initial message at the parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Yacob said he will do his best to nurture the gains of the peace overtures of the national government with the MNLF and the MILF.

Both fronts are cooperating in overseeing the Bangsamoro regional government.

“We shall continue with the peace and development initiatives started by our departed speaker via our newly anointed Speaker Yacob. We know he will function as a speaker religiously, in the context of good, upright governance. He is qualified for that task,” Mr. Macacua said.

Besides having studied Sharia law in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Yacob had also earned a master’s degree in public administration at the Cotabato City State University. — John Felix M. Unson