COTABATO CITY (August 18,2025) — The chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation has barred MILF members from participating in decommissioning activities after accusing the government of reneging from its obligation to provide guerillas who had availed of the process with support needed for their reintegration into society.

The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) has refuted, via radio stations in the Bangsamoro region, the MILF’s insinuation, citing that there are records to prove that the front is wrong.

Radio reports on Monday, August 18, 2025, quoted David Diciano of OPPARU’s Office for Bangsamoro Transformation, as saying that the government had allocated P4 billion for the process since 2019.

Records obtained by Mindanao-based reporters from OPAPRU’s central office indicated that 26,145 MILF combatants had been decommissioned since 2019 and each had received P100,000 cash assistance, with corresponding skills and livelihood training to boost their productivity.

Ahod Ebrahim, chairman of the MILF’s central committee, issued on Saturday, August 16, a written directive for commanders and members of the front not to participate in any activity related to the fourth and final phase of the decommissioning process, which is part of their peace compact with the government, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.

The agreement, a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the MILF, paved the way for the replacement in early 2019 of the then 27-year Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more empowered Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Ebrahim had served as an appointed chief minister of BARMM from 2019 until early this year. He was replaced last March by Abdulrauf Macacua, the chief of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, via an appointment by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Provincial governors and mayors in Central Mindanao, where there are MILF enclaves now recognized as “peace zones” by the police and military, had suggested to Ebrahim to talk peacefully with OPAPRU officials about their assertion that the government has reneged from its commitment to religiously facilitate the decommissioning of their guerillas in BARMM and elsewhere in Mindanao.

Members of the 80-seat BARMM parliament, where the MILF has representatives, told reporters on Monday that the issue is best settled through dialogues, in the presence of representatives from Malacanang and the front’s central committee. They volunteered to help check the veracity of the complaints of the MILF that had circulated on social media.

Photo shows the capitol in Cotabato City of the Bangsamoro government, which is being managed by officials of the MILF (Cotabato City, Bangsamoro Region)