COTABATO CITY (August 25, 2026) —- Christian and indigenous non-Moro communities in Cotabato City are cooperating with the Bangsamoro Federalist Party in helping push forward the efforts of the Commission on Elections, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the Cotabato City Police Office to ensure safe and clean regional parliamentary elections on September 14 in their barangays.
Cotabato City, which has 37 barangays, is the regional capital of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The Comelec, the military’s Western Mindanao Command and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region are all set for the September 14 first ever regional parliamentary polls in the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and in the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where BARMM’s regional government center is located.
City and barangay officials told reporters on Tuesday, August 25, that the chairman of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party’s Cotabato City chapter, the lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, had separate engagements in recent weeks with Catholics and leaders of other Christian sects in Cotabato City, during which they assured him of their support for their candidates for the parliamentary seats covering their barangays.
They also talked then about the modalities of BARMM’s first ever September 14 parliamentary polls and agreed to cooperate in disseminating how voters are supposed to cast votes during the actual polling day, different if compared to the barangay, congressional, senatorial and presidential electoral processes.
Sinarimbo, who was appointed member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament in March 2025 by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., is candidate of the Bangsamoro Federalist Party for the parliamentary seat covering the second district of Cotabato City.
Big groups of Christians in Cotabato City had separately expressed support for the candidacy of Sinarimbo, for them a Muslim leader whose residence and office are open to non-Muslims who have concerns in their communities needing his intervention both as a practicing lawyer and as a BARMM regional official.
Radio reports had stated that Sinarimbo met last week with Catholic residents of Barangay Rosary Heights 11 in Cotabato City, during which they talked about peace and development issues in the area.
For Cotabato City residents, there are three, from more than 10 regional parties participating in September 14 regional polls, that are markedly “non-exclusivist” in connectivity with voting constituents — the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, the Bangsamoro Party, or BaPa Party, of the Moro National Liberation Front, whose president is MNLF’s chairman, Muslimin Sema, also currently serving as BARMM’s labor and employment minister, and the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, more known as the SIAP Party.
The Bangsamoro Federalist Party, the MNLF’s BaPa Party and the equally large and well-organized SIAP Party, whose members include more than 30 of the 39 mayors in Lanao del Sur, are not politically hostile to each other and are even together in furthering the peacebuilding and sustainable development initiatives of the office of BARMM’s chief minister, Abdulraof Macacua.
Photo shows Sinarimbo during a recent dialogue with a Christian community in Cotabato City. []
