Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 2
In forceAn Act Adopting the Official Emblem for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
The region has an official seal for authenticating official acts, with each element given a stated meaning — and an Arabic-language version that carries the same official status as the English one.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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
This adopts the Official Bangsamoro Seal — the mark that authenticates the region's official acts. It is circular, bordered by a rope, with the region's name arched across the top between two stars and the year 2019 at the foot. At its center a golden crescent holds a seven-rayed star to its right, set on green.
Every element is given a meaning in the text. The rope is unity, quoting Qur'an 3:103 — 'Hold tight to the rope of Allah, together. And be not divided.' The thin red strip inside it is the blood of the fallen mujahideen. The crescent is the principles that guided the struggle for self-determination. The seven rays are the region's seven constituent units.
And one sentence does more work than its length suggests: an Arabic version of the seal is likewise official. Not a translation of the seal — an equally official version of it.
Why it was proposed
A government that authenticates its own acts needs a mark to authenticate them with. The policy section frames it more broadly: the region establishing itself as a political entity that recognizes the justness and legitimacy of the Bangsamoro cause, with a seal reflective of its peoples' struggles and aspirations.
Who it affects
- Bangsamoro government offices, which use the seal on official acts.
- Anyone receiving an official Bangsamoro document who needs to know it is genuine.
- Arabic-reading citizens and institutions, for whom the Arabic seal carries full official standing.
Who would implement it
- No implementing body is named, and no office is given control of the seal's use.
Funding
No appropriation. The act appropriates nothing.
What changes if it becomes law
- The region gains an official mark of authenticity for its acts.
- Each element of that mark carries a meaning fixed in law rather than in custom.
- An Arabic version is official in its own right.
- Non-Moro Indigenous Peoples and the region's other peoples are named in the emblem's own symbolism, through the rope.
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
Read this against the flag act passed 6 days earlier and the difference is instructive. The flag act gives hex codes — #009966, #FFD700 — so a flag can be checked against the law. This one gives 'golden yellow', 'slightly red', 'green'. The seal that authenticates official documents is specified more loosely than the flag that flies over them, which is the wrong way round if forgery is a concern.
And forgery is not addressed at all. The act creates no offence for counterfeiting the seal, names no office to control who may apply it, and sets no procedure for its use. It describes the mark and stops.
The rope is the most deliberate thing here. The Bangsamoro cause is named in the policy section, but the emblem's central symbol of unity is defined to include Non-Moro Indigenous Peoples and 'other peoples' of the region — a choice about who the region belongs to, made in the part of the law most people will only ever see as decoration.