The Bangsamoro peace process is in trouble. It is getting worse by the day. And the most dangerous part is that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. does not appear to be paying attention.
This is not a new dynamic. The Bangsamoro has always been vulnerable to neglect by Manila. But the current moment is especially dangerous because the signals coming from the MILF are clear and urgent—and nobody in Malacañang seems to be listening.
What happened?
In March 2025, President Marcos replaced MILF Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim as Interim Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority. There was no consultation with the MILF Central Committee. This was followed by the appointment of seven members of parliament that the MILF did not endorse. The Central Committee submitted 41 nominees; the Palace appointed only 35. The result: the MILF was reduced from majority to minority in its own parliament—a body that the Bangsamoro Organic Law explicitly designated as MILF-led.
In July 2025, the MILF suspended the decommissioning of its remaining 14,000 combatants and approximately 2,450 weapons. Their message was straightforward: you violated the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. We will not continue surrendering our arms while you dismantle the framework those arms were surrendered for.
The MILF is not calling for war. They are asking for the agreement to be honored.
No one from the Palace has substantively responded. No action from the President. No action from OPAPRU.
Why the silence? President Marcos is fighting on multiple fronts. The impeachment proceedings over flood infrastructure spending threaten his presidency. The confrontations with China in the West Philippine Sea demand daily attention. The political war with the Dutertes requires constant maneuvering. And there are the persistent questions about the President’s health, which have raised concerns about his capacity to manage the full range of presidential responsibilities. Each of these is real, each is consuming, and each carries more immediate political consequences for the President than a peace process in Mindanao.
The Bangsamoro, for Malacañang, has become a problem that can wait. But it cannot wait. Peace processes do not pause while presidents attend to other business.
OPAPRU is part of the problem. The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity was supposed to manage the relationship between the government and the MILF. Instead, OPAPRU actively supported the leadership changes in the BARMM. It picked sides. It cast its lot with specific individuals and factions. OPAPRU is no longer a neutral broker—and the MILF knows that they cannot trust OPAPRU.
The result is that the one institution designed to manage exactly this kind of crisis has lost the trust of the very party it needs to engage.
The risks are real and growing. There are 14,000 combatants and 2,450 weapons still inside the normalization framework. That framework is the MILF’s last remaining institutional connection to the peace process. If it breaks, those combatants and weapons move outside any mechanism of control.
Meanwhile, the 26,145 combatants who already decommissioned are still waiting for the socioeconomic packages they were promised. Every month that passes without delivery confirms the suspicion that the government’s promises were empty.
In 2024, monitors recorded nearly 3,000 violent incidents in the BARMM—20% more than the year before. Violent extremist groups are watching this unfold. Every broken commitment is recruitment material. The conditions that produced the Marawi siege in 2017 are being quietly replicated.
BARMM has the youngest population in the Philippines. If this generation concludes that the peace process was a fraud, we will not just lose one election cycle. We will lose the next fifty years.
What President Marcos must do
The prescription is not complicated. It requires political will.
First, the President must personally engage. The Bangsamoro cannot be left to OPAPRU. The violations the MILF has raised—the removal of Chairman Murad, the reduction of MILF representation—require a presidential-level response. Not a press statement. A genuine engagement with the substance of the MILF’s position.
Second, the MILF’s grievances must be addressed on their merits. Whether the Palace characterizes the leadership changes as violations of the BOL or as exercises of presidential prerogative, the practical effect has been to destroy trust. Trust is rebuilt through action, not legal arguments. The President must engage with what the MILF is actually saying, not dismiss it on procedural grounds.
Third, OPAPRU must be reconstituted. Its current leadership has lost the confidence of the MILF. The office needs individuals with the stature, the relationships, and the credibility to serve as genuine interlocutors—not political operators managing a portfolio.
Fourth, de-escalation must begin immediately. Not after the impeachment hearings. Not after the China situation stabilizes. Not after the Duterte problem is resolved. Now. The peace process operates on its own timeline, and that timeline is accelerating.
The Bangsamoro has been here before. The Tripoli Agreement of 1976 was signed and then hollowed out. The 1996 Final Peace Agreement produced the ARMM—a monument to failed autonomy. Each time, the pattern was the same: sign the agreement, celebrate, then let national politics consume the attention needed for implementation.
The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro was supposed to break this cycle. President Marcos still has the chance to ensure that it does. But the window is narrowing.
The MILF’s response has been measured. The suspension of decommissioning is a signal, not an ultimatum. They are not asking for the impossible. They are asking for the agreement to be honored.
Four and a half million Bangsamoro are waiting for an answer. Mr. President, they have waited long enough.
(Bong Montesa negotiated peace with the MNLF and MILF. Also advised the Bangsamoro Transition Authority. He has watched one Moro peace agreement fail and is determined not to watch a second.)
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