Will the first regular elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) push through next year?
The Supreme Court (SC) quashed what has been the main argument in favor of postponing the region’s first regular elections. The high court said its September 9 ruling on Sulu, excluding the island province from BARMM, could not be a reason to postpone the polls.
“The court, consistent with its prior rulings, issued the order making the decision immediately executory knowing the election cannot be postponed,’’ SC spokesperson Camille Sue Mae Ting told reporters on Nov. 12.
The SC clarification did not stop Congress’ moves to postpone the elections, however. The Senate scheduled a second hearing on Wednesday, November 20, to continue deliberations on the bill filed by Senate President Francis Escudero. (UPDATE: The committee hearing was cancelled.)
He filed Senate Bill No. 2862 on November 4, the first day of candidacy filing for the BARMM elections. He sought to postpone the elections from May 12, 2025 to May 11, 2026.
“The recent case of Province of Sulu v. Senate… provides a compelling reason to postpone the Bangsamoro regular elections given its legal implications on the exclusion of Sulu from the autonomous region,” the bill’s explanatory note reads.
House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez filed an identical bill, House Bill No. 11034, the next day.
If the proposal by two top leaders of Congress is approved, it will be the second time that the BARMM elections are postponed. The polls were originally set for May 2022.
Here are the arguments for and against the postponement of the elections.
| Postpone | Don’t Postpone |
| It will give the BTA time to reallocate Sulu’s seven district seats after the exclusion of the province from BARMM | Legitimacy and accountability of political leaders are forged through elections |
| It will give the SC time to rule with finality on Sulu’s status in the BARMM | It will deprive BARMM residents of their right to choose their leaders |
| It will allow Congress to review other issues surrounding the BARMM elections | The regional elections have to be synchronized with the national and local elections |
| Address security concerns in the region while ensuring the complete decommissioning of MILF combatants | Political parties are “ready” for the elections. Regional political parties and district candidates have filed their candidacies |
| There will be more time for voter education. The BARMM polls are the first parliamentary elections in the country |
Arguments in favor of postponing the elections
1. It will give the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) time to reallocate Sulu’s seven district seats after the exclusion of the province from BARMM
The Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) and the Bangsamoro Electoral Code (BEC) state that the Bangsamoro Parliament “shall be composed of 80 members, unless otherwise increased by the Congress of the Philippines.” Half should be allotted to party representatives, at most 40 percent to district representatives and at least 10 percent to sectoral representatives.
The Supreme Court ruled that Sulu should be excluded from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) because the “no” vote prevailed during the 2019 plebiscite to establish the new autonomous region.
Sulu was allocated seven district seats in the parliament. The SC’s decision shrank the seats to 73.
It is now up to the BTA to allocate the seats again across all BARMM provinces, as they have done once through the Bangsamoro Autonomy Act 58.
“The printing of the ballots will be in December. The time is not enough until before the 2025 elections to address all these because we need to have the correct and the proper legal infrastructure surrounding the conduct of the first elections,” insisted Ria Lumapas of the Office of the Special Assistant to the President at the Senate’s Nov. 7 hearing.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian also asked BTA member Omar Sema if it is realistic for the transition authority to redistrict the seats for the 2025 elections.
“We have the power to reallocate,” Sema said in response. But he added that the transition authority is hesitant to touch the seats until the SC ruling is final, which leads to another argument for the postponement.
2. It will give the SC time to rule with finality on Sulu’s status in the BARMM
The SC’s unanimous decision is “immediately executory,” but petitioners asked the high court to reconsider its ruling. The BARMM government also filed an intervention to urge the same.
BTA member Omar Sema claimed that the body can freely decide on the seven hanging seats only when the SC decides on the issue with finality.
“Probably that’s when we can move… Right now we can’t reallocate because we are still looking at our brothers and sisters in Sulu… We are one people, we are one homeland. We can’t get what was for Sulu. What is for Sulu is for Sulu only,” said an impassioned Sema, who is also a member of the Sema faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
Islam first entered the country through Sulu. Bangsamoro leaders refer to Sulu as the cradle of the Muslim revolution in the country. It is also the birthplace of MNLF, the first Muslim rebel group in the country.
Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, however, pointed out that waiting for the SC’s final verdict could further delay the polls, especially if the justices aren’t able to issue a final decision within the one-year period. “If we wait on the Supreme Court ruling, we could be seeing another extension next year… the issue could drag on,” he said in Filipino.
The SC took five years before ruling on Sulu’s exclusion.
3. It will allow Congress to review other issues surrounding the BARMM elections
In SB 2862’s explanatory note, Escudero said that Congress needs to deliberate on the Special Geographic Area (SGA), a collection of eight municipalities in BARMM that are province-less. Residents voted to be a part of the region in the 2019 plebiscite.
“The creation of a new province necessitates the creation of a legislative district as well. Failure on the part of Congress to do so may result in the disenfranchisement of voters in the 8 municipalities as enumerated above, since they will not be able to vote for a governor and a representative,” he said.
SGA voters still get to choose a candidate for their lone parliamentary district and a regional political party.
Facing reporters on Nov. 12, Escudero took issue with the Bangsamoro Electoral Code that allows BTA officials to continue office even after filing their certificates of candidacy for the parliamentary elections. The code also states that if a political party loses, the one-year ban on hiring will not apply to their nominees.
“These two provisions violate the Constitution,” he said. It’s also the reason why he advised the President to replace BTA members who are gunning for parliament seats.
Criticisms against the BEC are not new. In June last year, BARMM leaders questioned the constitutionality of certain provisions, including the non-mandatory resignation of BTA officials, in the SC. The top court has yet to rule on the petition.
But asked whether this issue has a bearing on the decision on the postponement call itself, Escudero said it has “no effect.”
3. Address security concerns in the region while ensuring the complete decommissioning of MILF combatants
Presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. told senators that resetting the BARMM elections will allow his office to focus on its decommissioning efforts.
“By covering sizable amounts of small arms and light weapons through this process, we can decrease the threats from the use of loose firearms during the election period and guarantee that election-related violence is within reasonable control of the government,” Galvez said.
4. There will be more time for voter education. The BARMM polls are the first parliamentary elections in the country.
Maguindanao del Norte Governor Macacua, a high-ranking official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), cited this reason at the Senate hearing on November 7.
Macacua's stand runs counter to the MILF’s preference for the elections to go ahead as scheduled next year.
He echoed Parliamentary Resolution 641, which was led by non-MILF members in the BTA.
Arguments against postponing the elections
A number of civil society organizations have also stood against the move. Here are their reasons for wanting the 2025 parliamentary elections to push through:
1. Legitimacy and accountability of political leaders are forged through elections
It is better to proceed with the elections because it gives legitimacy to political leaders, according to BARMM Minister of Education Mohagher Iqbal.
“One implication is that when you are elected by the people, you have more legitimacy. But when we are appointed by the President, although he has that appointment power, our authority is less,” he told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in an interview.
“That’s why we wish for the elections in 2025 to push through. After the transition, it’s free for all. Anyone can participate in the elections,” Iqbal added.
Benedicto Bacani, executive director of the think-tank Institute for Autonomy and Governance, shared the same sentiment.
“As early as elections take place would be good for the government. You can’t have a government that doesn’t have legitimacy. An appointive government would always have weak legitimacy,” he told PCIJ.
The Coalition for Social Accountability and Transparency also argued that “elections will make regional leaders accountable to their constituencies rather than to any appointing authority.”
2. It will deprive BARMM residents of their right to choose their leaders
Poll watchdog Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) has contended that Sulu’s exclusion from the BARMM does not present an “urgent, substantial, or compelling justification” for postponing its elections.
“The issue of Sulu’s exclusion from the BARMM, while significant, does not prevent BARMM residents from exercising their voting rights for the remaining 73 parliamentary seats,” the group said in a Nov. 7 statement.
LENTE said the proposal “fails to meet the strict criteria set by the high court in Macalintal vs. Executive Secretary.”
An election postponement “must primarily be justified by the need to safeguard the right of suffrage or other fundamental rights, required by a public emergency situation, or other similar important justifications,” read the SC decision in the case.
LENTE highlighted the parliamentary election’s role in the decades-long peace process in Mindanao: “This first election represents a significant step towards providing the Bangsamoro people an opportunity to exercise the right to self-determination and autonomy which they have long fought for and have unjustifiably been deprived of.”
“(P)ostponing elections may further deprive the Bangsamoro and the Philippines of the peace both have yearned for,” the group added.
Latiph expressed confusion at the postponement call, recalling nine instances when elections were postponed in BARMM’s precursor, the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. He said the last time an election was held there was in 2016.
“This is a moral question to our senators who gave their commitment to the people that (the postponement until 2025) would be the last. But why can’t elections be institutionalized for us?” the rights lawyer said.
Other resource persons at the Senate hearing proposed holding a special election for the seven remaining seats after the matter has been resolved by the Bangsamoro Parliament.
3. The regional elections have to be synchronized with the national and local elections
“Postponing the regional elections for one year is unconstitutional as it will not be synchronized with the national and local elections mandated by the Constitution,” the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) and the Climate Conflict Action Asia (CCAA) said in a joint statement.
Benedicto Bacani, AIG executive director, said that jurisprudence in Kida vs. Senate should be applied in the issue at hand. In that case the SC ruled that election in ARMM was considered local and hence, should be synchronized with the national elections, he said.
The group’s statement further said that “the constitutionally-mandated three-year term of office of members of the parliament is consequently violated when the regional elections are held apart from the national and local elections.”
4. Political parties are “ready” for the elections. Regional political parties and district candidates have filed their candidacies.
About 109 individuals formalized their bids for district representative posts and eight regional political parties forwarded their party representative candidates, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
The commission is asking Congress to make its final decision before they start printing ballots in mid-December. But Escudero said that deliberations could drag on until the session adjourns early next year, or just a few months before the elections.
Should a postponement ensue, Comelec estimates that a separate election for the BARMM could cost the government between P1 billion and P3 billion.
The IAG and CCAA urged Congress “to not rush the passage of the bill postponing the regional elections… Forcing its passage will have grave implications to the peace process and security of the region.”
LENTE also implored lawmakers to consult the public and key election stakeholders as they deliberate on the bills.
“Any sign that these bills would be railroaded or expedited without the necessary and effective consultation would contribute to the sentiment that the national government is again meddling in the affairs of the region,” the group said. — PCIJ.org