Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 16
In forceAn Act Adopting an Official Seal for the Parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
Parliament and its members have a seal of their own, distinct from the Bangsamoro Seal, for use on official acts, communications and documents.
Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.
What this measure does
Parliament gives itself a seal. Circular, bordered by two green lines, with its name arched across the top on white and '20 BARMM 19' across the bottom on red. At the center sits the Bangsamoro flag shaped as a shield, and around it eighty boxes in a horseshoe — the shape of a debating chamber, and the number of its members.
Above the shield, an open book on a brown stand. The act says what it means: the living adherence of the Parliament to the rule of law.
The seal may be used on all official acts, communications and documents of the Parliament *and its members*, alongside the region's own seal, with the detail left to the Parliamentary Rules.
Why it was proposed
The policy section is about standing rather than administration: adopting the seal establishes the Parliament as the legislative authority of the region, in recognition of the justness and legitimacy of the Bangsamoro cause. A body created by someone else's law marking itself as an institution in its own right.
Who it affects
- Anyone receiving an official document from the Parliament or from a Member.
- Members of Parliament, who may use the seal on their own official communications.
Who would implement it
- No implementing body is named; usage detail is left to the Parliamentary Rules, Procedures and Practices.
Funding
No appropriation. The act appropriates nothing.
What changes if it becomes law
- Parliament acquires a mark distinct from the region's own seal.
- Members may use it, not only the institution.
- The number of members and the chamber's form are written into the region's iconography.
Raised during deliberations
No published record of the debate on this measure. Parliament’s journals cover sittings up to March 2023 only, and no committee report on it has been published.
What to notice
Put this beside BAA 2 and the contrast is instructive. The Bangsamoro Seal — the mark that authenticates the region's official acts, where forgery would matter most — was specified in color names: golden yellow, slightly red, green. Parliament's own seal, adopted a year and a half later, is specified in hex codes throughout, down to two shades of grey for an open book and two browns for the stand it rests on. The institution was noticeably more exacting about its own emblem than about the region's.
The eighty boxes are the detail worth keeping. They fix the size of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority in the Parliament's own seal — which is a curious choice for a body whose membership is set by the transition arrangements and which is meant to be replaced by an elected Parliament. A seal that counts the current members is a seal that may 1 day count wrongly.
As with every other symbols act except the hymn, there is no offence for forging or misusing it.