MORO Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Hadji Murad Ebrahim has urged his successor to reconsider his decision to oust Education Minister Mohagher Iqbal from the Cabinet of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
In a letter, BARMM Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua directed Iqbal to resign. Macacua’s letter dated May 11 also imposes an ultimatum on Iqbal stating “resign or be deemed resigned by the close of office hours on Monday, May 18, 2026.”
However, Iqbal flatly rejected the order, saying he would not resign.
Macacua, then convened the Management Committee (Man-Com) of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) to meet mid-level executives as he assumed the agency’s top post the following day.
He said MBHTE changes are “not about Brother Iqbal; it’s about reforms that the Moral Governance, since the time of the first ICM, has wanted to put in place.”
But 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, dated 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, Macacua 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.”
