Tan is of Chinese-Tausug descent and was born on July 13, 1950, in Maimbung, Sulu, the eldest child of Abubakar Tan (former mayor of Maimbung) and Satriya Mahail. He attended high school at the Notre Dame of Jolo for Boys and obtained a bachelor's degree in 1983 from the Notre Dame of Jolo College.[1]
He is married to Nurunisah Abubakar-Tan, former Vice Governor of Sulu (daughter of former Jolo mayor Habib Aminkandra N. Abubakar) and has five children.[2]
Political career
Tan established a political base in Jolo by aligning himself with the Abubakar and Isquerdo families. He served first as a municipal councilor of Jolo (1981–87), then as the representative of Sulu's first congressional district (1987–1992) and as governor (1996–2001).[1] He lost the 2001 election to MNLF leader Yusop Jikiri but won the governorship a second time in 2007 with 110,715 votes.[3] In 2010 he won re-election, beating rivals Munir Arbison and Nur Misuari by over 24,000 votes.[4]
Tan presumably became ineligible to run for chief minister after the Supreme Court ruled on September 9, 2024 that Sulu was not part of the BARMM due to a majority of its voters choosing not to join the region in a 2019 plebiscite. Tan and his son, Abdusakur Tan II, had previously opposed Sulu's inclusion into the BARMM, with the latter, in his capacity as governor of Sulu, filing the petition that led to the Supreme Court decision.[7] Tan welcomed the Supreme Court ruling despite its implication on his Chief Minister bid, believing that the province's exclusion from the autonomous region would be beneficial economically in the long run.[8]