COTABATO CITY - Bangsamoro chief minister and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Murad Ebrahim said Friday that they have already submitted a list of 12,000 MILF fighters and their weapons for decommissioning.

The figure represents 30 percent of the entire force of the MILF.

Ebrahim said the submission is the first of three stages of the gradual decommissioning of the MILF fighters.

The entire process will be overseen by an international decommissioning body (IDB), an independent international monitoring team.

“Yung combatants is 12,000, iyung weapons is still subject for verification,” Ebrahim told reporters.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier led the inauguration ceremony of the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

• 'My happiness is real': Duterte grateful for creation of Bangsamoro region

"I cannot express my sense of gratitude to you for understanding, giving us the time to craft the law, to make it legal and promise a new dawn for the Bangsamoro area or territory. Talagang totoo ang kaligayahan ko (My happiness is real)," Duterte said in his speech.

Ebrahim vowed that moral governance will be the foundation of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA.)

"We have been guided in our arm struggle by the tenets of Islam. We will also be guided by the teachings of Islam in delivering the trust that has been given to us to run the Bangsamoro government through the brand of leadership Islam advocates--that is moral governance," he said.

Ebrahim then led the members of the transition committee, composed of 41 representatives from the MILF and 39 others from the government, in taking the oath of moral governance.