BARMM body sets one more push to pass districting law
COTABATO CITY—The leadership of the parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) has set Jan. 12 to hold a special session solely to take up the proposed measure creating parliamentary districts from where 32 of 80 members of the regional legislature will be elected.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Yacob, in a memorandum marked as “urgent,” informed all members of parliament (MPs) that the special session will be held at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex at 1 p.m. to “continue the deliberations” on the districting measure.
Yacob urged all MPs to attend the special session in the hopes of having the measure passed and set off next steps leading to the conduct of the region’s first parliamentary elections that had been postponed thrice already.
The measure remained pending when the body adjourned on Dec. 18 last year for the Christmas break.
Yacob said the Jan. 12 special session is in response to the request of Bangsamoro Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua for the parliament to convene on Dec. 29, and on Dec. 30 and 31 when necessary, to hammer the districting measure.
Yacob had begged off on those dates given the unavailability of several MPs and support staff owing to the long holiday break.
Under the parliament’s rules, the Speaker can call for a special session upon the request of the Chief Minister “in response to emergency situations or important matters, when public interest or public safety so requires.”
The absence of a districting measure has bogged down efforts to finally hold regional elections as the geographic scope of 32 single-representative parliamentary districts had yet to be defined.
