BARMM parliament moves closer to enacting districting law

COTABATO CITY – Members of Parliament (MPs) of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) moved closer to enacting a districting measure on Monday during a special session convened by Speaker Mohammad Yacob upon the request of Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua.

As of posting time, the plenary is now into the period of amendment after a gruelling four hours of interpellation starting at around 3 p.m., punctuated only by “health breaks” lasting a few minutes.

As announced, five MPs have registered their intentions to propose amendments to Parliament Bill No. 415, which was adopted as the working draft by the committees on rules and local government, per Committee Report No. 196.

There were five other proposals for creating 32 parliamentary districts in the BARMM. These are PBs 403, 407, 408, 411 and 416. All of these were recommended to be archived by the rules and local government committees.

When it was filed, PB 415 was authored by Sinarimbo anf MPs Kitem D. Kadatuan Jr., Tomanda D. Antok, Alindatu K. Pagayao, Ibrahim P. Ibay, Butch P. Malang, Abdulbasit R. Benito, Ma-Arouph B. Candao, Amer Zaakaria A. Rakim and Alikarim T. Munder.

The joint committee report was presented to the plenary by Deputy Floor Leader Naguib Sinarimbo, chair of the local government committee, who also stood for scrutiny by a slew of interpellators.

By past 7 p.m., the legislators took a longer break.

The special session gathered at least 70 MPs.

The earlier deliberations had indicated that the parliament had overcome the perceived legal issue of it having to pass the measure within the 120-day period prior to election day when any alteration of districts, precincts, or territorial configuration is prohibited, based on an earlier caution by the Bangsamoro Attorney General’s Office. /gsg