COTABATO CITY (October 2, 2025) — The Philippine flag and the Bangsamoro banner are both raised half-mast in the Bangsamoro capitol in honor of the speaker of the 80-seat regional parliament who died from an illness early Thursday, October 2.
Members of the regional lawmaking body and the chief minister of the Bangsamoro region, Abdulrauf Macacua, told reporters on Thursday morning that the 85-year-old Pangalian Ali Balindong, a lawyer, died from an illness at the St. Luke’s Hospital in Quezon City.
“We are saddened by the demise of the speaker of our regional parliament,” Bangsamoro Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, said.
Balindong was a scion of a large, politically-influential clan whose members are scattered in Malabang and in nearby towns in the second district in Lanao del Sur, one of the five provinces of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. His ancestors fought the Spaniards, the Americans and the Japanese during World War II.
Balindong, born on January 1, 1940 in what is now Pualas municipality in Lanao del Sur, finished bachelor of laws at the Manuel L. Quezon University and passed the Bar in 1967.
Balindong was a legal counsel of the MNLF during the crafting of the December 23, 1976 Tripoli Agreement between the front and the Philippine government.
The compact was to become the main reference in the peace talks between the government and the MNLF and, subsequently, between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Both fronts had forged separate peace agreements with the national government and are now together managing several agencies in the BARMM government and have representatives in the region’s parliament.
“We ought to thank him (Balindong) a lot for his contributions to the Mindanao peace process,” BARMM’s health minister, the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., who is also a member of the BARMM parliament, said.
Balindong had served, during the early 1990s, as speaker of the Regional Assembly of the now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao., which was replaced in 2019 with a more empowered BARMM, a product of 22 years of peace talks between the national government and the MILF.
He was also thrice elected as congressional representative of the 2nd district of Lanao del Sur, prior to his appointment as member of the interim Bangsamoro parliament in 2019.
“His involvement in the Mindanao peace process is one for the books,” Macacua, the figurehead of the BARMM parliament, said, referring to Balindong.
A member of the BARMM parliament, Naguib Sinarimbo, also a lawyer, said they are saddened by the death of Balindong.
“Speaker Balindong was a staunch supporter of the Mindanao peace process, both in his private life and as a public servant,” said Sinarimbo, who was Bangsamoro local government minister before he was appointed as member of the regional parliament last March by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
Balindong was also popular for his being close too with BARMM’s Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities.
Photo shows Balindong, who succumbed to an illness at a hospital on Thursday.