Comelec suspends preps for Oct. 13 BARMM polls until SC lifts TRO or resolves validity of BAA 77
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 17 September) – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday suspended all preparations for the October 13 polls in the Bangsamoro autonomous region “until the Supreme Court lifts the Temporary Restraining Order or resolves the validity of Bangsamoro Autonomy Act 77 on the merits.”
The suspension order is contained in Comelec Resolution 25-1015 issued Wednesday, two days after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring the electoral body and the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) from implementing Bangsamoro Autonomy Act (BAA) 77, the redistricting law that re-allocated the seven parliamentary district seats originally intended for Sulu.
The suspension also came 27 days before October 13, the first Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections since the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was established in 2019. The election has been postponed twice, from May 2022 to May 2025 and from May 2025 to October 13.
The Comelec resolution suspended “all preparations for district, sectoral, and party representative elections in the BARMM until the Supreme Court lifts the temporary restraining order or resolves the validity of BAA No. 77 on the merits.”
The BTA Parliament passed BAA 77 or the Bangsamoro Parliamentary Redistricting Act of 2025, on August 19, five days after the election period started. The law amended BAA 58 which created the 32 parliamentary districts in early 2024, seven of them in Sulu. But on September 9 last year, the Supreme Court ruled that Sulu is out of the BARMM because voters there opted against ratifying RA 11054 in 2019, hence the redistricting.
Cannot answer
Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia told reporters in Manila that for now, he cannot answer the question if the elections will push through on October 13.
He said they were preparing for an election of 73 Members of Parliament (MPs) on the basis of BAA 58 because the seven Sulu seats had not been reapportioned when the Comelec issued a resolution on August 27.
Garcia said BAA 77, signed into law on August 28, effectively repealed BAA 58 and the election should be for 80, not 73 seats.
He explained that if the Supreme Court lifts the TRO, this means BAA 77 will have to be followed and this means the election of 80 MPs. But if the Supreme Court issues a final decision and says BAA 77 is “unconstitutional, illegal, unlawful,” this would mean BAA 77 would be set aside and BAA 58 would be revived as the basis for the conduct of the election.
He stressed that the Comelec has no mandate to reset elections because it is Congress that has that mandate.
August 27 resolution
Comelec resolution 25-1015 also directed the Law Department to coordinate with the Office of the Solicitor General for the filing of the Comelec’s “extremely urgent manifestation” to the Supreme Court.
The high court had ordered the Comelec and the BTA to submit their comment within five non-extendible days.
The high court in a special en banc session on Monday issued the TRO, barring the Comelec and the BTA from implementing BAA 77, pending the final resolution of the two petitions filed before the Supreme Court. The decision was announced Tuesday afternoon.
The Comelec resolution also said they will “pause the effectivity of the 27 August 2025 en banc minute resolution.”
Minute Resolution No.25-0928 declared that any redistricting measure could no longer be implemented for the October 2025 elections, citing “credible risks of confusion, disenfranchisement, and loss of public trust if late-stage changes were introduced.”
The resolution also deferred the implementation of the redistricting measure to the next regular Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE) after 2025, and to formally notify the BTA that while district reconstitution is under consideration, its application in the 2025 BPE is not practicable in the present timetable.
Recommendations
The Comelec resolution adopted the recommendations of the Bangsamoro Study Group (BSG) and its Law Department. The resolution did not say who comprises the study group.
The BSG said the August 27 resolution cannot be the legal basis for the Comelec to proceed with the elections under BAA No. 58.
It said the August 27 resolution is not legally tenable because “that resolution was an interim measure adopted by the Commission En Banc in the absence of clear guidance by way of an operative or effective apportionment law, and was always subject to further developments and supervening legal orders, such as actions by the Supreme Court.”
On August 28, a day after that resolution, the BTA Parliament’s redistricting bill was signed into law by interim Chief Abdulraof Macacua, on the same day the 45-day campaign period started.
The BSG added that the “apparent, immediate, and practical” result of the TRO is that upon its effectivity, “there is currently no clear statutory authority for the election of parliamentary district representatives in BARMM.”
It also noted that the legal challenge does not concern only the district seats.
Comelec had earlier said the election could proceed with 25 of 32 parliamentary district representatives.
It said that under the Bangsamoro Organic Law and Bangsamoro Electoral Code, the configuration of sectoral and regional parliamentary political party representative seats is “fundamentally linked to the total number and apportionment of parliamentary districts.”
The BSG said the effect of the TRO raises legal questions not only in relation to district seats but the entire BARMM elections, citing risks of “malapportionment, unequal suffrage, and constitutional challenge against the actions of the Commission.”
Repealed
The Comelec’s Law Department noted that the Supreme Court’s TRO “clearly enjoined Comelec from implementing BAA, which the Commission is duty-bound
to enforce for the 2025 BPE.”
With the issuance of the TRO, “the Commission is effectively barred from conducting election activities effective from the receipt thereof on 16 September 2025 until further order from the Supreme Court.”
The Law Department said that BAA 77 “repealed BAA No. 58 by reallocating the seven parliamentary districts previously allocated to the Province of Sulu and effectively redistricting the parliamentary districts.”
Under Republic Act 11054 or the Organic Law for the BARMM, voters are supposed to elect 80 Members of Parliament, 40 of them political party representatives, eight sectoral representatives and 32 parliamentary district representatives.
BAA 77 also provides under Section 4 that in the event the newly-created district is left without a duly elected Parliamentary District Representative, “the President of the Philippines shall appoint an Interim Parliamentary District Representative to serve until a representative is duly elected and qualified.” This provision is among those being questioned by those who petitioned the Supreme Court.
When the Comelec suspended all preparations effective Wednesday, the Comelec was supposed to deposit in escrow on the same day the “final trusted build source codes” for the October 13 polls to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, in compliance with RA 9369 or the Automated Election System Act. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
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