In Senate, Escudero to file bill seeking to postpone BARMM polls
Senate President Francis Escudero is set to file this Monday a bill seeking to postpone the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections in May 2025 following the recent Supreme Court decision cutting out the province of Sulu from the region.
“It will be filed on Monday, I’ll be the one to author the bill. We need a three-day notice so we might hold the hearing on Thursday,” he said in an interview with radio dzBB on Sunday.
“It’s important … that we give our fellow Filipinos in BARMM a notification regarding the Congress’ plan to postpone the elections and the main reason was the decision of the Supreme Court in relation to the province of Sulu,” Escudero explained.
Bangsamoro officials have earlier sought for congressional intervention to postpone the BARMM parliament elections to reconfigure the region’s new jurisdiction and to reallocate its 80-member parliament seats since Sulu will no longer be entitled to its seven allotted seats.
BARMM, which is now operating through the interim governing body Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) composed of presidential appointees, has been preparing to hold its first parliament election that will coincide with next year’s midterm polls.
However, in September, the high court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) but ruled that Sulu is not part of the BARMM after the province voted against the law’s ratification.
The Senate begins this week its plenary deliberations on the national budget for 2025. Under its rules, no committee hearings are allowed while the plenary is tackling the budget.
But Escudero said they would make an exemption to deliberate on the postponement of the Bangsamoro election.
“It looks like it’s going toward that direction, that’s the information that I got,” he said when asked if it’s being prioritized by Malacañang.
He agreed there was a need to resolve the matter of where to allocate parliament seats meant for Sulu, saying they could not just be deducted from the region’s total parliament seats. Under the BOL the region is provided with 80 parliament seats.
“How about the party list groups and sectoral groups who were all registered there?” he also asked.
He added: “All of that need to be decided on and we need a little time to do and fix these things because an important part of peace talks includes consultation with stakeholders in BARMM,” he added.
COC filing
Meanwhile, the filing of the certificates of candidacy (COC) proceeded for those running for BARMM parliament, scheduled from Nov. 4 to Nov. 9.
Commission on Elections Chairperson George Garcia said more Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police troops were sent to the region to help ensure the peace and security of the COC filing process.
Garcia, however, stressed that this should not be viewed that the national government considers the region as a hot spot for election violence.
“Excessive deployment of troops in the region would be unnecessary. It might send the wrong message that just because they are there in the Bangsamoro, we are monitoring them too closely. This is not the case, as we just want to make sure that we have enough forces on a standby basis in case they will be needed,” Garcia said in an interview on dzBB on Sunday. —WITH A REPORT FROM DEXTER CABALZA
