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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 15) – The House of Representatives will begin deliberating on bills to extend the mandate of Bangsamoro Transitional Authority officials in January next year.
At least three bills have been introduced in the House seeking to extend the term of the BTA. The chairman of the Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity of the House of Representatives, Esmael Mangudadatu, said Monday that the bills have been referred to his panel, as well as to the House Committees on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms and Muslim Affairs.
The first regular elections for the Bangsamoro Parliament are scheduled for May 2022, in line with national and local elections in the Philippines. Should the BTA extension bills become law, the first ordinary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) will be carried over from 2022 to 2025.
“This humble representation sincerely agrees with President Duterte, Secretary Gálvez and the BARMM that the BTA needs an extension of mandate. It is very unlikely that they will be able to put everything in order in a very short span of three years, “Mangudadatu said at a hearing.
President Rodrigo Duterte accepted the BTA’s request to extend the region’s transition period until 2025 as the country battles the COVID-19 crisis, his cabinet officials previously said.
Mangudadatu said BARMM Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim expressed support for extending the terms of BTA officials in a recent meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives Lord Allan Jay Velasco, and other officials.
The legislator urged his colleagues to support the extension of the transition period for BARMM.
“The achievement of the aspirations of peace, unity, genuine autonomy and development in the BARMM region is also an achievement of the entire nation,” he said.
The Bangsamoro Organic Law that was ratified in 2019 abolished the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and replaced it with the BARMM, a new autonomous political entity with more power, including its own parliament. The creation of the BARMM has raised hopes that Bangsamoro will have the opportunity to achieve genuine self-government that it has been fighting for for decades.
The BTA recently adopted Resolution 332 urging the House and Senate to extend the transition period to give them more time to get the normalization and peacekeeping process underway.
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