COTABATO CITY (Tuesday, August 26, 2025) — Policemen, fire service personnel, Army and Marine troops and provincial poll officials paraded in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte early Tuesday, August 26, to show support for cross-section efforts to ensure peaceful and credible Bangsamoro parliamentary elections in October.

The Unity Walk event was organized by officials of the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office, led by their director, Col. Eleuterio Ricardo, and their immediate superior, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Ricardo told reporters after their Tuesday morning’s activity that all of them in the Maguindanao del Norte police force shall do their best to have clean and safe Bangsamoro parliamentary elections on October 13 in all of the 12 municipalities under their jurisdiction.

Ricardo, De Guzman, two Bangsamoro parliament members, Ibrahim Ibay and Mohammad Kelly Antao, representatives from the Bureau of Fire Protection, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Brigade that has units securing parts of Maguindanao del Norte, also affixed their signatures to a written pledge to cooperate with the security preparations of the Commission on Elections for the first ever parliamentary polls in the autonomous region.

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao covers the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.

BARMM, a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, was created in 2019, replacing the then 27-year less empowered Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

“We shall do our best to have clean and peaceful elections in Maguindanao del Norte,” Ricardo told reporters.

Comelec officials assigned to Maguindanao del Norte and BARMM’s Special Geographic Area covering 63 barangays in different towns in Cotabato province under Region 12 also participated in the Unity Walk and, in separate messages, appreciated the community-based election-related security engagements of all units of the Bangsamoro regional police.

Photo shows the participants to Tuesday morning’s Unity Walk in Sultan Kudarat, the capital town of Maguindanao del Norte.