Mass rally shows support for United Bangsamoro Justice Party in Philippines

Around 300 thousand Maguindanaons have marched in support for United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) in a grand proclamation rally ahead of the Philippines elections. 

The marchers stayed for more than 6 hours under sun heat on Thursday in the presence of all UBJP candidates for 2022 elections in Maguindanao province and Cotabato City. 

Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro region and UBJP President Ahod Balawag “Murad” Ebrahim described this year’s election as the most historic for the Bangsamoro people after more than four decades of political and armed struggle, and ordered the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to vote straight-ticket for the UBJP.

Murad said that the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is a fruit of more than 40 years of struggle, adding, “we need to protect this, we invested our lives, blood, sweat and sufferings, and we will win this time.”

UBJP President Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim believes that Maguindanao 2nd District Representative Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu is one with the Bangsamoro Government if elected as governor of the province.

Believing in Islamic democracy

UBJP candidates in Maguindanao province and Cotabato City have shown their consistent support both during the enactment of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) and in the push for the extension of the Bangsamoro transition period.

The Party pledged to mobilise all its resources and strength to ensure that its official candidates in Maguindanao and Cotabato City will win.

UBJP is a political party of the Philippines. It was founded on May 8, 2015 by Moro Islamic Liberation Front, believing in Islamic democracy and Moro self-determinism. The party's headquarters was in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.

Largest Philippine Muslim groups

Maguindanao is an ethnolinguistic group living primarily in south-central Mindanao, the largest island in the southern Philippines. With a name meaning “people of the flood plain,” the Maguindanao are most heavily concentrated along the shores and in the flood lands of the Pulangi-Mindanao River basin.

In the second decade of the 21st century, the Maguindanao numbered nearly 1.4 million, making them the largest of the Philippine Muslim groups collectively identified as Moro.

2022 Philippine elections

The UBJP fielded candidates for local positions to be contested in the 2022 Philippine elections. The party selected candidates who supported the Bangsamoro cause and the MILF-led Bangsamoro's government campaign to extend the transitional period of the region.  

In April 2021, incumbent elected officials of the province of Tawi-Tawi joined the UBJP. They were joined by 11 Maguindanao mayors the following month marking the first batches of officials joining the UBJP.  

The UBJP endorsed Esmael Mangudadatu and Bai Sandra Sema as candidates for governor and vice governor of Maguindanao for the 2022 elections. 

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