Tolentino brings up fiscal problem for Sulu province following SC ruling

Senate Majority Leader Francis “Tol” Tolentino raises the fiscal problem Sulu province faces after the Supreme Court ruled the validity of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) organic law and finally dropped Sulu from the region.

MANILA, Philippines – Senate Majority Leader Francis “Tol” Tolentino on Monday brought up the fiscal problem Sulu province faces after the Supreme Court ruled the validity of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) organic law and finally dropped Sulu from the region.

Acknowledging the national government’s lack of anticipation of the high court’s ruling that the province of Sulu is not part of the BARMM, Tolentino said the consequence is the difficulty of funding BARMM offices in the detached province.

The lawmaker was reacting to Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan’s report that employees of the BARMM offices in his province were already informed of the last salary until Sept. 10.

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Tan also reported that the BARMM offices in their province lack funds to sustain operations, including rentals and utilities, which the Sulu provincial government cannot shoulder.

Tolentino assured the governor of his continuing quest to resolve the issue while budget hearings on national agencies are ongoing in Congress.

He said he has always asked the departments during the budget hearing how they could help the province of Sulu, whose funding from the BARMM, where it once belonged, would be stopped.

However, Tolentino said the Departments of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Science and Technology (DOST) were unable to answer how to assist Sulu province in the previous budget hearings.

He said that during the DILG budget hearing, he asked to which region the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Sulu now belongs after the province was rendered without a region with the high court’s ruling.

Tolentino shared that the PNP told him that the PNP in Sulu would be placed under Region IX, or the Zamboanga Peninsula, which Tan said was the regional unit in command before the BARMM.

In 2019, Sulu rejected the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, which seeks to expand the autonomous region in Mindanao, despite most of the provinces in the previous Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) voting in favor of the law.

Despite voting against it, Sulu was still included in the BARMM, prompting it to file a petition before the high court assailing the constitutionality of the organic law.

The court declared unconstitutional the provision in the law that directed ARMM provinces and cities to vote as a single geographical unit, including provinces that rejected the law.

According to the Supreme Court, this interpretation violated Article X, Section 18 of the Constitution, which mandates that only regions voting favorably in the referendum should be included in the autonomous region.

Given Sulu’s rejection of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the high court ruled that including the province in BARMM was improper.