Bill reconfiguring BARMM parliamentary districts approved

COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro Parliament approved before dawn on Tuesday a measure reconfiguring the 32 parliamentary districts in the autonomous region, a requisite of its first ever elections since its creation in 2019.

The first ever electoral exercise in the Bangsamoro region was deferred until March 2026, after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the two related enabling measures meant to reconfigure the parliamentary districts in the autonomous region.

Sulu had seven parliamentary districts while still one of the six provinces in the Bangsamoro region, now covering only Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi provinces and the cities of Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.

Jet L. Lim, floor leader and spokesperson of the 80-seat parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), told reporters on Tuesday that regional lawmakers made sure that the Parliament Bill 415 is “constitutionally sound” and attuned to the Supreme Court’s guidance on the setting up of the parliamentary districts in the region after having taken Sulu out of BARMM.

Parliament Bill 415, which regional lawmakers approved on third and final reading, during an extensive session that culminated after midnight on Monday, allocated nine parliamentary districts in Lanao del Sur, five each in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur, and four each in Basilan and Tawi-Tawi.

It also established three parliamentary districts in Cotabato City and two in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area (SGA) in Cotabato province.

The SGA covers 63 barangays that originally belonged to different towns in Cotabato province, whose residents voted in favor of the inclusion of their ancestral domains in the contiguous areas into the core territory of the Bangsamoro region during a plebiscite in 2019.

Members of the BARMM parliament, among them Naguib G. Sinarimbo, former regional local government minister, said they made sure that the Parliament Bill 451 legitimizes the conduct of the first regional elections in the autonomous region, slated in March this year.

“This bill was crafted to directly address the legal issues raised by the Supreme Court pertaining to the setting up of the parliamentary districts in the Bangsamoro region,” Mr. Sinarimbo said.

Mr. Sinarimbo said the measure ensures the conduct of BARMM’s first parliamentary elections within the High Tribunal’s prescribed timeline.

All 80 members of the BARMM parliament are functioning as presidential appointees, without electoral mandate, since the region’s creation in 2019. — John Felix M. Unson