COTABATO City—Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Hadji Murad Ebrahim has urged his successor to go slow in removing Education Minister Mohagher Iqbal from the regional Cabinet of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Meanwhile, an estimated crowd of 20,000 staged a protest march toward the government building here amid the call for Iqbal’s resignation for alleged mishandling of government funds for BARMM’s Department of Education.
Earlier, BARMM Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua wrote Iqbal to resign. Macacua’s letter dated May 11 also imposes on Iqbal a deadline, stating “… resign or be deemed resigned in the close of office hours on Monday, May 18, 2026.”
Iqbal as responded that he would not step down.
Ebrahim said any decision to remove key officials of the MILF from the BARMM Cabinet should not come from Macacua alone.
“It has come to the attention of the MILF Central Committee that you have issued a letter, date May 11, 2026 directing Brother Mohagher Iqbal as Minister of Basic, Higher and Technical Education or be deemed resigned by May 18, 2026,” Ebrahim wrote in a memorandum to Macacua on Monday, using an MILF central committee stationery.
Ebrahim said “all such decision must be preceded by a mandatory consultation with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as lead organization in the Bangsamoro Transition Authority under the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB, and pursuant to Article XIV, Section 2 of the Bangsamoro Organic Law.”
“Please be reminded that as Interim Chief Minister, this decision is not solely yours to make,” Murad said in a memorandum to Macacua, as MILF military chief-of-staff, signed on May 18 as head of the MILF central committee.
Ebrahim said as chief minister Macacaua had the “duty to consult the MILF on major decisions affecting the affairs of the BARMM, especially on policy directions, appointments, transfer or removal of key MILF officials that will directly impact on the implementation of CAB and the overall structure of the Peace Process.”
He added that “Brother Iqbal is not an ordinary Cabinet Member of the BARMM. He is the Chairman of the MILF Implementing Panel. To remove him as an active Member of the Cabinet will have dire effects on the participation of the MILF in the political track of the transition period.”
The protesters marched to the gates Monday of the regional government here to protest a letter from Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua, ostensibly asking Iqbal “to resign or be deemed resigned” as Education minister.
Macacua cited a special report by a team of the Commission on Audit (COA) on alleged discrepancies in procurement bids made by suppliers of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), involving 45 contracts with joint-venture (JV)bidders, for a the total amount of P 2, 247,023,709.80.
The letter dated May 11, also imposes a deadline, stating “… resign or be deemed resigned in the close of office hours on Monday, May 18, 2026. Iqbal has responded, according to his office, to say he would not resign.
The Office of the Interim Chief Minister (OICM) staff apparently lacked the information to officially confirm the letter—which in terms of official form had no barcode and neither had the usual dates of official release by the OICM nor an official receipt stamp by the receiving-end, the MBHTE to place it on record.
Contrary, however, to a post by Prof. Parido Pigcaulan on social media, suggesting overpriced procurements, the COA audit report cited in the OICM-letter-headed missive made no such observation.
Reached by phone, Iqbal said he had since conferred with the COA resident auditor assigned in the agency, and has been assured of a progressive compliance with technical requirements sought in the COA audit team’s report from MBHTE’s management and finance services. Iqbal said he would not resign then.
Information or disinformation once shared on social media is stirring high emotions among supporters of either side—and mostly of the unwitting masses.
Sources said the protest was planned as early as a week prior bycivilian supporters to hold in-front of the Executive Building at the Bangsamoro Government Center, today, Monday, against the current dispensation.
But on the other hand, that makes perfect timing for both officialsto speak to the people, no less, political observers noted.
Police estimate the crowd at close to 20,000 and is increasing
In the national scene, as it is now here to observe, questions of technicality have often come into play in no different timing than an election day forthcoming.
Too, the Moro people are now getting used to a reality of politics being different from armed struggle for an ideal cause, as one may put it, paraphrasing a veteran military officer involved in the peace process.
Many of his supporters consider Iqbal as the pillar of peace negotiations that defended the MILF position in many forums, including Senate Committee hearings that lumped up the MILF into adversaries of the Mamasapano debacle in 2015.
It can be recalled that mixed-up encounters resulted in 65 deaths—44 Police Special Action Force officers and personnel, 14 MILF guerrillas, and a blind female child caught in crossfires in Barangay Tukanalipao of that town.
