Senate OKs bill postponing first BARMM polls

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to postpone next year’s parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), extending the transition period in the region until 2025.

Voting 15-3-1, senators passed Senate Bill No. 2214, which seeks to amend Republic Act No. 11054 or the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) by postponing the BARMM polls initially scheduled for three years 2022.

The measure aims to extend until 2025 the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), which currently serves as the interim BARMM parliament in compliance with the BOL.

Under the bill, the President shall appoint 80 members of BTA who will serve up to June 30, 2025, or until the election of their successors upon the expiration of the terms of the current members of the BTA.

In resetting the year of the BARMM elections, the BTA will be given more time to perform its mandate considering that the pandemic posed “significant challenges” on accomplishing its priority programs and projects, Senator Francis Tolentino said when he sponsored the bill in plenary last May.

“The global pandemic we are facing has posed significant challenges on the accomplishment of the priority programs and projects of the BTA, as it has for the national government as a whole,” Tolentino added.

“Development projects had to take a back seat to the formulation and implementation of an effective response to the global health crisis,” he further said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto and Senators Panfilo Lacson and Manny Pacquiao voted against the measure while Senator Imee Marcos abstained from voting.

In explaining his vote, Lacson maintained that the postponing of the elections must be approved by the people of BARMM in a plebiscite.

“[The BOL] provides for the holding of election as synchronized with the national and local elections and as such, it is my belief that postponing the elections should also be in accordance with the mandate of the people of [BARMM], which should be decided in a plebiscite,” he said.

For her part, Marcos expressed doubts that a postponement “for a very long period of three years” would fulfill the purpose of the BOL.

“Article 1, Section 3 stating that the purpose of the organic law is to establish a political entity providing a basic structure of government to secure identity and posterity allowing for meaningful self-governance within the framework of the Constitution. In fact, postponement may be in flagrant violation of the organic law as stated in Article 4, Sections 2 and 3, most explicitly and compellingly in Section 10, which states that freedom of choice should be paramount and that all peoples of the BARMM shall be respected,” she said.

“Does the postponement of its very first regular election demonstrate that respect for self-government or does it, in fact, perpetuate a historical injustice endured for centuries by the peoples of Muslim Mindanao?” she added.