COTABATO CITY— Nabil Tan, a Deputy Speaker in the Bangsamoro Transition Authority Parliament have urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision removing Sulu from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Tan, younger brother of Sulu Gov Abdusakur Tan, in his speech during a session of the BARMM parliament last Thursday, September 19, told reporters that he had lengthily expressed his insights on the removal of his province from the BARMM.

“I then politely appealed to the Supreme Court to think about the implications of such a decision,” Tan said on Saturday as quoted by the Philstar. 

He was referring to the High Tribunal’s ruling on a petition by his governor-sibling to exclude Sulu from the provinces under the Bangsamoro government, citing that residents voted against its inclusion into the region’s territory during a plebiscite in 2019, a requisite for the enactment into law then of BARMM’s charter, the Republic Act 11054, also known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law.

The creation of BARMM was premised on two compacts between the MILF and the national government, the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro signed during the administration of Pres. Benigno C. Aquino, Jr. (PNoy).

Muslimen Sema, Chair of a separate faction of the MNLF, and Minister of MoLe said the creation of the now defunct ARMM and the BARMM was premised on the December 23, 1976 Tripoli Agreement between the MNLF and Malacañang, crafted then in Tripoli, Libya by the front’s peace negotiators and counterparts in the government.