COTABATO CITY (January 8, 2026) — Local executives and members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament dismissed as “harassment” the Supreme Court contempt petition filed against 10 regional lawmakers by a lone petitioner complaining about their alleged inaction on the reapportioning of parliamentary districts in the region that originally belonged to Sulu province.
The Supreme Court removed Sulu from the core territory of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao last year as petitioned by then Gov. Hadji Abdusakur Tan, Sr., who was elected vice governor of the province during the May 12, 2025 elections.
Local executives in BARMM’s five provinces told reporters on Wednesday, January 7, via Viber and text messages that the judiciary should investigate on the real persona of the contempt petitioner, Zaoawi Buludan, who filed a petition for indirect contempt against 10 members of the 80-seat parliament, alleging lapses in their roles in passing a regional law needed to reapportion the seven parliamentary districts in Sulu to the provinces and cities in the Bangsamoro region.
The respondents to Buludan’s indirect contempt petition at the High Tribunal, the parliament members Naguib Sinarimbo, Amenodin Sumagayan, Romeo Sema, Ishak Mastura, Tomanda Antok, Zulfikar Ali Bayam, Rasul Esmael, Baintan Ampatuan, Rasol Mitmug, Jr. and Kitem Kadatuan, Jr., are co-authors of a proposed regional law for the setting up of seven new parliamentary districts in BARMM’s five provinces and three cities after the Supreme Court’s having taken Sulu out from the autonomous region.
Sulu is now in the territory of Administrative Region 9, based on a directive signed late last year by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
Buludan, virtually unknown to most local executives in BARMM, complained about the parliament’s not having established seven new parliamentary districts still, via an enabling measure approved by its members, after the Supreme Court declared last year as unconstitutional two related proposals drafted earlier, the Bangsamoro Autonomy Acts 58 and 77.
Sinarimbo, a lawyer who had served as BARMM’s local government minister prior to his appointment by the President last March 2025 as member of the parliament, told reporters on Wednesday that Buludan’s move is “harassment and persecution” for targeting only the 10 of them in the regional lawmaking body who are together working for the the setting up of new seven parliamentary districts in the autonomous region.
“The petition is technically flawed because it targets only certain members of parliament. It is the parliament, as a body, that is working on that initiative,” Sinarimbo told reporters.
Two provincial officials in BARMM told reporters via text messages they have noticed that the Supreme Court documents apparently circulated by Buludan’s camp to media outfits in the autonomous region do not have a docket number yet and lacked the full narrative of his petition that should bear his full name and signature.
The setting up of the seven new parliamentary districts in BARMM cities and provinces is essential to the conduct of the first ever regional elections in the region.
Photo shows Sinarimbo and the regional capitol of BARMM in uptown area in Cotabato City, the capital of the Bangsamoro region.
