Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 36
In forceCabinet measureAn Act Establishing a Revolving Fund for the Payment of Salaries, Compensation, and Emoluments of Workers and Personnel of Nationally Funded Programs Deployed in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Providing Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes
When national funds are late, the Bangsamoro ministry can draw on the Fund to pay salaries, compensation and emoluments — and the Fund is reimbursed once the national agency finally transfers the money.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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 solves a specific and very ordinary injustice: a worker doing a job in the Bangsamoro, on a program paid for by the national government, going unpaid because the money has not yet come down from Manila.
The act puts a billion pesos in a revolving fund. When a national transfer is delayed, the Bangsamoro ministry supervising the program asks the finance ministry to release from the Fund, and the worker is paid on time. When the national agency eventually transfers the money, the Fund is reimbursed immediately and stands ready for the next delay.
Two guardrails come with it. Section 5 says plainly that none of this makes the Bangsamoro Government responsible for the National Government's obligations — the Fund covers timing, not liability, and ministries must still do whatever is needed to get the national funds released. And Section 9 requires a quarterly report on every release, obligation and disbursement, going to Parliament through the Speaker.
Why it was proposed
The policy section frames it as protecting workers' welfare, and names the gap exactly: personnel deployed in the region under nationally funded programs, needing a mechanism that ensures timely payment for services already rendered.
Who it affects
- Workers and personnel on nationally-funded programs directly supervised by Bangsamoro ministries, agencies or offices.
- Those ministries, which request releases and must pursue the national downloading.
- The Ministry of Finance, and Budget and Management, which administers the Fund and reports on it.
- Parliament, through quarterly reports and the Committee on Finance, Budget and Management.
Who would implement it
- Ministry of Finance, and Budget and Management, which administers the Fund, releases on request, operates the reimbursement mechanism, issues the rules and reports quarterly
- BARMM ministries, agencies and offices implementing nationally-funded programs
Funding
Carries an appropriation. ₱1,000,000,000 appropriated as a revolving fund, chargeable against the Contingent Fund. Because it is reimbursed whenever national funds arrive, the billion is a working balance rather than an annual cost.
What changes if it becomes law
- Delayed national transfers no longer mean delayed wages for workers in the region.
- A standing billion-peso facility exists for the purpose, replenished by reimbursement.
- Parliament receives quarterly accounts of its use.
- The Fund cannot be quietly wound up — it survives program discontinuance and dissolves only after two fiscal years of disuse.
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
This is a devolution act disguised as a budget mechanism. The Bangsamoro cannot make the national government pay on time; what it can do is stand between the delay and the worker, and then get its money back. That is a modest legal idea with a large practical effect, and it is aimed at exactly the people least able to absorb a late paycheque.
The drafting is unusually careful in three places. Section 5 forecloses the obvious risk — that a bridging fund becomes a permanent subsidy, with national agencies content to let the region carry their payroll — by stating in terms that the Bangsamoro Government assumes none of the National Government's responsibilities. Section 6 forecloses the opposite risk, that the Fund is dissolved the moment a program pauses, by requiring two full fiscal years of no requests before reversion, reported to Parliament. And Section 9 requires quarterly reporting on every release and disbursement, which for a billion-peso fund operating on ministry requests is the difference between a facility and a slush fund.
What the act cannot do is make reimbursement happen. It requires the MFBM to provide a mechanism for immediate reimbursement once national funds arrive, but nothing here reaches the national agency that is late in the first place. If the delays became permanent rather than occasional, the billion would drain and the act gives no answer to that.