“Bangsamoro lost a shahid (martyr) today,” said Murad Ebrahim, the MILF chair and interim chief minister of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), which will temporarily govern the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). ADVERTISEMENT“He is one of the pillars of the MILF leadership and has been with the Bangsamoro struggle for around 50 years or more,” Murad said in a text message to the Inquirer. “He is a consensus builder, and that’s the vacuum he left behind,” Bacani said. As the first peace panel chair of the MILF under the late Salamat Hashim, Jaafar signed the ceasefire agreement with the government in 1997. His passing comes at a time when we are about to start a new chapter in the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination,” said former ARMM Gov.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer March 13, 2019 21:33 UTC