This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.

JIMMY LOVAAS, HOST:

Welcome to the Factal Forecast, a look at the week’s biggest stories and what they mean from the editors at Factal. I’m Jimmy Lovaas.

Today is Sept. 17, 2026.

In this week’s forecast we’ve got electoral violence in the Philippines, NATO Chiefs of Defense meeting, the UN General Assembly Debate, elections in Morocco, and China’s president visiting the US. 

You can also read about these stories and more in our monthly newsletter, which you’ll find a link to in the show notes.

Continuing electoral violence in Philippines’ BARMM

Interview featuring Matthew Hipolito

JIMMY: Up first, we’ll look at some election-related violence in the Philippines. For more on that I’ve got fellow Factal editor Matthew Hipolito.

JIMMY: Hello, Matthew.

Matthew: Nice to see you, Jimmy.

JIMMY: So glad you're here today. I've been looking forward to hearing about the situation in the southern Philippines. I know the Muslim majority autonomous region of Bangsamoro just held their first ever parliament election, but hoping you can give us a little bit of background on the situation and get us up to speed on things. So, what can you tell us about it all?

Matthew: So, the region in question is called the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. And the term Bangsamoro itself means a nation of the Moro people, and Moro is a general term for the various Muslim ethnic groups in the Philippines. These areas of the southern Philippines have been majority Muslim since the 14th century, but their power has been slowly diluted over the years either by imperialist subjugation or Christian settlement that was tacitly supported by, you know, the colonial powers in Manila. The current phase of the conflict began in 1968 after the Marcos regime killed about 200 Muslim army recruits. And for a lot of it, the major group was called the Moro National Liberation Front, but after they signed a deal with the government in 1976 that outlined an autonomous, not independent, region. A splinter faction called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front formed to oppose autonomy. But that deal collapsed, and the MNLF kept fighting for several years. The framework for where we really are now came about in 2010, when the MILF said that they would also accept autonomy, but nothing less, which was a departure from their previous, like, independence-only, no autonomy stance. That led to a series of talks that, in 2018, led to the passage of what's called the Bangsamoro Organic Law, which detailed the formation of the Bangsamoro region, which would have its own parliament and laws. And as part of that process, the MILF agreed to what they called decommissioning, where they would slowly hand over weapons and return their 40,000 fighters to civilian life. But last year, they unilaterally suspended that process, claiming that the government hadn't implemented the agreement well enough. So there are still 14,000 armed soldiers who are very loyal to MILF in the region, which means they are only as committed to peace as, you know, the MILF is. The MNLF and the MILF were the two main groups that were really behind the Moro nationalist cause, but religious separatism is also a driver here. There were, are, a number of Islamic separatist militant groups in the region. The more important one in this case is the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, who broke away from MILF to fight for independence instead of autonomy, kind of mirroring how the MILF founded. And then there are a few cells, groups, called Dawlah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf, and they're aligned with the Islamic State. And while these groups have really declined in strength, as recently as 2017, they had enough soldiers to capture the city of Marawi, which was home to 200,000 people. And the battle to retake it just completely gutted the center of one of the region's major cities. But the good news here is that this was really the climax of what had otherwise been a really long, drawn-out operation against these separatist militants in this country. There have been very concerted military efforts to ensure that there's not going to be another Marawi, and it seems to have worked. The military regularly claims to clear out militant camps. Most estimates have the strength of each of these groups in the dozens to low hundreds at the highest, and that's still enough to carry out some attacks. One of the Dawlah Islamiyah cells bombed a university in 2023 and killed four people, but their strength has really massively declined. Before we move on, I want to be clear here and say that I'm glossing over a lot. While this is the gist of it, as far as explaining the current situation on the ground and how we got here, we're not even coming close to beginning to understand the conflict itself or the political situation that evolved around it. 

JIMMY: Well, what's the latest? Have you seen any new developments?

Matthew: This election, one thing that I kind of left out in all that talk about organized separatist violence is that, like, run-of-the-mill political violence is also really common in the Philippines. The whole country, really, but especially in the Bangsamoro. Politics in the Philippines is very clan, very family centric, and that's where a lot of political divisions appear. There's actually a specific term, rido, for violence between Moro clans, and that's really been the type of disruption that we've seen so far. That violence seems to be driven more by conflict between local clans and power brokers than by nationalist or Islamist ideology. The MILF and the mainstream separatist factions are, in that sense, just one of a few groups vying for power rather than dominating the fight like they did during the armed insurgency phase. But as far as violence is concerned, like I said, it's not everywhere, but it is serious where it does exist. The headliner here is a shooting that killed three people and injured, you know, more than a dozen more at a polling station at a school in Cotabato City, but the shooting was between supporters of two political parties, so it wasn't [an] attack on the election, like, itself -- it wasn't, like, concerted to disrupt the election. But another shooting killed one more person. You also had bombs go off in multiple areas of Cotabato as well; those injured a few people, and you had pre-filled ballots delivered to 36 precincts in Masulu in Basilan. So Comelec, the electoral commission, took direct control of both Cotabato and Maluso, which they are empowered to do. And the violence there has been going on for months. There have been a bunch of attacks, with the big one being an attempted ambush on the convoy of the interim regional head. He survived, and a bunch of local officials have been shot at or even killed. And that's just the last few months. It's worse during election season, but it's really not uncommon for shootings or assaults to target politicians or their supporters anywhere in the country. 

JIMMY: Well, what sort of reactions have you seen to this?

Matthew: It's muted congratulations. Nothing you wouldn't expect, really. Everyone's taking the same line because it's an easy line to take. The polls happening at all is a historic triumph for peace after 50 years of war, but the violence is unacceptable. That's basically what you're seeing from everybody who's present, like police, local government statements, multiple international observer missions, and they're right on both points.

JIMMY: Well, you know, considering all that, what do you think folks ought to be watching for next?

Matthew: Well, results indicate that the likely outcome is a hung parliament, actually, which should be interesting. The BFP, the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, has the most votes, but only around 35%. They're the regional associate of the PFP, which is the ruling party of President Bongbong Marcos, whereas the UBJP, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party, is the official party of the MILF. They're in second with 32% of the votes. What's interesting is that the BFP only formed earlier this year out of basically defectors from the UBJP, which means that these parties are both full of MILF senior leaders. And in third place is the BARRM Grand Coalition, the Bangsamoro Grand Coalition, which is an alliance of some of the major clans that are outside the MILF power structure, and they have around 20% of the votes. The interplay between these parties will be really interesting. There's really clearly a Marcos-aligned MILF faction in the BFP. And in the UBJP, there's one that is more in tune with the traditional leadership there, but they're otherwise very broadly similar. They're all running on moral governance and keeping ongoing with the peace process. Which side ends up in power may very well be the one that can better court those powerful familial clans, and I've seen some analysts suggest that Marcos kind of encouraged the split within the MILF in order to weaken it, so as to increase the relative power of these clans, which might give the Marcos side a leg up in, you know, cutting a deal with them. One analyst I saw even went so far as to say that, like, this could lead to a world in which the MILF leadership and the Dutertes end up as partners simply by virtue of having a common enemy in the Marcoses. Basically, it boils down to whether or not the dominant political force here for the next few years will end up being the more ideologically driven Bangsamoro nationalist leadership that steered the insurgency for decades, as opposed to the more pragmatic bloc that is willing to make deals with other factions where convenient. As far as security goes, I would keep my expectations limited. Political violence is just a fact of life here, and the elections alone aren't just going to change that. I think best case you see a slow downtrend in violence at the points where these political factions clash, like a gradual simmering down. But more realistically, I think things just kind of continue as they are. Like, while this new region – the bureaucracy may eventually develop institutions and regulations powerful enough to quash these sectional divisions, that will take a while, if it happens at all, and low-level violent conflict will just continue to be a staple of the region. Now, both of these are pretty bleak, but the worst worst case is that the BARMM just collapses entirely. Remember that the MILF suspended the decommissioning of its last 14,000 fighters because they felt that the government wasn't implementing the peace agreement well enough. For that agreement to like finally conclude, like be made complete, both sides have to sign an exit agreement saying that the treaty's terms have been carried out satisfactorily, and both the UBJP and the BFP are led by MILF members powerful enough that maybe they don't feel satisfied if the new government doesn't include them. If that happens, all bets are off. There are at least, like I said, 14,000 armed militants that are loyal to an organization that is currently tearing itself in half. Which way do they go? There are tens of thousands more that were members of this organization, armed members, just a few years ago. A lot of them are now members of the military, the police. What happens to them? What happens to their units? Like, it's a remote possibility, but if it comes to pass, then it's really just impossible to say how things will turn out.

JIMMY: Well, Matthew, we'll have to pause there for today. But as usual, thanks so much for your time and for always keeping us plugged in to the important stories in the region. Appreciate you.

Matthew: Of course, Jimmy. Always happy to speak with you.

NATO chiefs of defense meeting

Information compiled by Jess Fino

JIMMY: NATO’s Military Committee will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, for two days starting tomorrow.

The meeting will bring together 32 chiefs of defense, with heightened security expected across the Danish capital.

Officers will be on alert after several recent demonstrations in Copenhagen led to arrests.

Security will also be a major concern after a credible Iranian threat against U.S. President Donald Trump during a meeting in Ankara in May.

As you may recall, that led U.S. officials to secretly move him onto another military aircraft, while using the original Air Force One as a decoy.

Accordingly, authorities are expected to pay particular attention to potential Iranian threats during the upcoming meeting.

Now, the meeting is likely to lead to a further acceleration of NATO’s military build-up.

The meeting will also follow up on decisions made during the Ankara summit, where officials agreed to increase defense production and accelerate the delivery of weapons and military capabilities.

The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia will also be on the agenda.

Finally, the meeting comes just days after Denmark’s foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador. 

That, over what it said were “so-called flares” fired at an air force helicopter by a Russian frigate in international waters off the coast of Gedser.

UNGA General Debate

Information compiled by Theresa Seiger

JIMMY: World leaders will gather in New York City for the UN General Assembly’s General Debate beginning Tuesday.

World leaders gather each year at United Nations Headquarters for the General Assembly.

This year’s theme is “Restoring Trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those expected to speak.

He’s expected to draw protests during his address after representatives from dozens of countries walked out of his speech last year, while thousands of demonstrators protesting Israel’s war in Gaza gathered outside.

His arrival in New York also drew protests last year, with more than a dozen people arrested during a demonstration near the hotel where he was staying on the Upper East Side.

Netanyahu has said he plans to travel to New York despite tensions with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has called for his arrest under a 2024 warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.

Now, authorities have not shared details about security plans for this year’s event.

In 2025, police deployed officers and closed roads, while transportation officials warned that vehicle speeds in Midtown during the assembly are historically their slowest of the year.

As for the General Assembly, last year they voted to endorse a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, with Israel and the United States among 10 countries voting against the measure.

Morocco legislative elections

Information compiled by Jaime Calle Moreno

JIMMY: Millions of Moroccans will vote on Wednesday to elect the 395 members of the country’s House of Representatives.

The results will play a key role in forming Morocco’s next government.

Under the country’s multi-party constitutional monarchy, several political parties compete for seats, with King Mohammed VI selecting a prime minister from the party that wins the most seats to form a coalition government.

The current ruling parties remain at the forefront, including the National Rally of Independents, or NRI, the Istiqlal Party, and the Authenticity and Modernity Party, or PAM.

Tensions have been rising between key figures from RNI and PAM.

Now, prosecutors have been told to investigate election complaints and coordinate with security services, which are expected to be deployed across the country during the vote.

First-time voters make up around 15 percent of the electorate and come to the polls following large-scale, Gen Z-led protests last September.

Of course, the next government will face major foreign policy issues.

Those include a scheduled UN Security Council vote in October on the disputed Western Sahara and the recent migration crisis in Spain’s Moroccan enclave of Ceuta.

Chinese president visits the White House

Information compiled by Hua Hsieh

JIMMY: Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24.

The meeting comes as a one-year trade truce between China and the United States is set to expire on Nov. 10.

Reports suggest both sides are looking to extend the agreement, though details about the other potential tariff measures remain unclear.

Discussions are also expected to include competition over artificial intelligence and geopolitical tensions involving Iran and Taiwan.

Of course, Xi’s previous visits to the US have drawn protests.

During his last visit in 2023, protesters blocked streets outside the APEC forum in San Francisco.

Now, authorities in Washington, D.C., are likely preparing for similar demonstrations during his visit.

The trip comes against the backdrop of a prolonged economic and strategic standoff between Washington and Beijing after the two leaders met during Trump’s trip to China, earlier in May.

Neither Chinese nor U.S. officials have provided further details about Xi’s schedule.

Reports suggest Xi is likely to arrive in the US on Sept. 23, skipping the UN General Assembly for meetings at the White House, before leaving the country on Sept. 25.

JIMMY: As always, thank you for listening to the Factal Forecast. We publish our forward-looking podcast each Thursday to help you get a jump-start on the week ahead. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. We’d love it if you’d consider telling a friend about us.  

Today’s episode includes work from Factal editors Jess Fino, Theresa Seiger, Jaime Calle Moreno, and Hua Hsieh. Our interview featured editor Matthew Hipolito and our podcast is produced and edited by me – Jimmy Lovaas. Our music comes courtesy of Andrew Gospe.

Until next time, if you have any feedback, suggestions or events we’ve missed, drop us a note by emailing hello@factal.com

This transcript may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability not guaranteed. 

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Music: 'Factal Theme' courtesy of Andrew Gospe