Bangsamoro Parliament seeks another extension of transition period

FIRST SESSION. Members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) for 2022-2025 attend their first regular session on Monday (17 October 2022) at the Shariff Kabunsuan hall in Cotabato City. MindaNews file photo by FERDINANDH CABRERA

COTABATO CITY (MindaNews / 23 October) – The Bangsamoro Parliament has adopted a resolution requesting the Senate and the House of Representatives to extend again the transition period from 2025 to 2028.

Authored by Member of Parliament Engineer Baintan Ampatuan, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Resolution 505 seeks to postpone the region’s first regular parliamentary elections, scheduled in May 2025, to allow all stakeholders to adequately prepare for a “smooth democratic transition.”

In the committee report presented Tuesday by Floor Leader and Committee on Rules Chairperson Atty. Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, it was stated that the resolution would allow “for addressing the legal issues” after the Supreme Court ruling that excluded Sulu province from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“This will pave the way for additional time to resolve current legal issues affecting the upcoming elections,” Dumama said.

The move will also promote wider participation of political parties, an extended voter education and enhance voters’ understanding of the new electoral process, according to Alba.

“It is now up to the House and the Senate to consider and act upon this request from the Bangsamoro Parliament,” she said during the 79th session of the third regular session of the BTA.

The BTA is the interim body formed to govern the Bangsamoro government. The term of the BTA, established in 2019 following the ratification of Republic Act 11054 or the Bangsamoro Organic Law, was extended after then President Rodrigo Duterte approved Republic Act 11593.

Republic Act 11593 extended the transition period that would have ended on June 30, 2022, for three more years or until June 30, 2025, by resetting the first election of the 80-member Bangsamoro Parliament from May 2022 to May 2025. 

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had declared in Malacañang that the BTA’s mandate would no longer be extended.

“In 2025, we no longer will have any extension to the authority, and we will conduct elections,” the Presidential News Desk quoted him as saying on August 12, 2022.

He issued the pronouncement during the oathtaking of officials of the extended BTA, which is dominated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) just like the original BTA.

After 17 years of negotiations, the MILF and the Philippine government inked the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in 2014, which paved the way for the establishment of the BARMM in 2019.

Mayor Raida Maglangit of Kapatagan, Lanao del Sur, castigated the BTA’s move seeking another extension of the transition period.

”Let the people decide. We are baffled by these desperate moves. Why not let the people decide in the 2025 BARMM election who they want to lead them?” Maglangit said in a Facebook post.

She added that concerns have been raised that the BTA action is an apparent attempt to influence or delay the electoral process.

“This call for transparency and respect for voters’ choices reflects a desire for a fair and democratic process where the Bangsamoro people can freely elect their leaders, giving us the chance to exercise our right of suffrage in the BARMM region,” she stressed.

Maglangit emphasized the importance of upholding the right to vote as enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. (Ferdinandh Cabrera / MindaNews)