Around 800 teachers withdraw from BARMM poll duties

Policemen guard a stretch of a strategic thoroughfare in Cotabato City as part of the security efforts meant to ensure safe and fraud-free Bangsamoro parliamentary elections in all of its 37 barangays on Monday, September 14, 2026.

COTABATO CITY, Philippines --- Apprehensive of possible hostilities, some 800 teachers in the Bangsamoro region had reportedly withdrawn from their supposed September 14 election duties in school campuses in politically-hostile areas in the Bangsamoro region.

The Catholic radio station DXMS in Cotabato City reported on Sunday that Chairman George Erwin Garcia of the Commission on Elections, no less, confirmed that among the teachers who balked from performing election duties on Monday are based in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi and Maguindanao del Sur, in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area and in Cotabato City, the capital of the autonomous region.

The Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area has eight towns established just two years ago, all under the Bangsamoro regional government, but are inside the territory of Cotabato province in Administrative Region 12.

The report of DXMS, one of the six radio stations in Central Mindanao of the Catholic Notre Dame Broadcasting Corporation, also stated that 137 teachers in different schools in Cotabato City had also asked poll officials to excuse them from their election assignments.

The territory of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao encompasses the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, where BARMM 32-hectare regional capitol is located.

There are towns in Maguindanao del Sur and Lanao del Sur, where there are state-recognized bastions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, that are locked in deadly clan wars involving big, heavily-armed Moro groups, now supporting rival aspirants for seats in the 80-member BARMM parliament.

The acting commander of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, his subordinate, Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog, commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, and the director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, Brig. Gen. Christopher Abecia, had separately told reporters that their units are in full control of the security situation around polling sites in all provinces and cities in BARMM.