COTABATO CITY (September 20, 2026) — Two of the six elected nominees for bloc representation of a political party in the 80-seat parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) are no strangers to regional governance.

The now duly-elected parliament members Amilbahar S. Mawallil and Hanie A. Bud had both served as officials of the regional government of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which was replaced in 2019 with a more administratively and politically-empowered BARMM.

Mawallil and Bud were elected as representatives to the parliament of the BARMM Government Coalition, most known by its acronym BGC, during the September 14 fist ever Bangsamoro regional elections.

Mawallil, a Tausug, was regional information director of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for a number of years before it got replaced with a more politically and administratively-empowered BARMM in 2019, a product of a tedious, longtime peace overture between the national government and southern Moro communities.

Mawallil was also a member, from 2022 to 2025, of the interim BARMM parliament based on an appointment by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.

Bud, a scion of a Yakan clan in one of the 11 towns in Basilan, had also served, in various capacities, as an ARMM official when the region’s governor was Mujiv Hataman, now governor of the province. Bud was also a former three-term mayor in Maluso, Basilan prior to his nomination last week for BGC’s group representation in the BARMM parliament.

Bud was a former assistant professor in the Tawi-Tawi campus of the Mindanao State University, executive director of the ARMM Youth Affairs outfit, and general manager of the ARMM’s Ports Authority.

One of the founders of the BGC, Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal A. Adiong, Jr, told reporters on Sunday, September 20, that he is sure that Mawallil and Bud can perform their duties as regional lawmakers efficiently.

“I am certain that they can both speak well, in the parliament, about the plight, the need for regional government services of the Muslim, Christian and indigenous non-Moro communities in the Bangsamoro region and help uphold their rights and privileges as constituents of the Bangsamoro government,” said Adiong, also a senior official of the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, or SIAP, the pioneer regional political party in BARMM.

The allies BGC and the SIAP are among the more than 10 regional parties that the Commission on Elections permitted to field candidates for representatives of BARMM’s 32 parliamentary districts and nominees for party representation in the 80-member parliament.

Hataman, also one of the forerunners of the BGC and was governor of ARMM from 2011 until it got replaced with BARMM in 2019, was quoted in radio reports as thanking the voters in BARMM for having provided with electoral mandate at least six of the BGC’s nominees for party representation in the Bangsamoro parliament.

Hataman is also the figurehead of the equally well-organized, Comelec-accredited Bangsamoro People’s Party that also has members across BARMM’ five provinces, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, and three cities, Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where the 32-hectare Bangsamoro government center is located.

Photo shows the now duly-elected Mawallil (left) and Bud, both virtually not newcomers to public service via regional governance. []