Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 37
In forceCabinet measureAn Act Establishing the Seat of Government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the Municipality of Parang, Province of Maguindanao Del Norte, Appropriating Funds Therefor, Amending Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 9 of the Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 13, and for Other Purposes
The Wali's office, the Chief Minister's office, the Parliament, the ministries and agencies are all to relocate to a new government centre at Parang. A committee chaired by the Senior Minister plans it, Parliament approves the site, and the whole project has a ten-year limit.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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 moves the capital. The seat of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region is established at Parang in Maguindanao del Norte, where a new government center is to be built to house the Office of the Wali, the Office of the Chief Minister, the Parliament, the ministries and agencies.
It is deliberately unhurried. A Committee on the Establishment of the Seat of Government — chaired by the Senior Minister, with the finance, public works, environment and transport ministers, the cultural heritage commission and the planning authority, and civil society organizations invited as observers — identifies the site, subject to Parliament's approval, and prepares the master plan and timetable. The physical transfer from Cotabato City proceeds gradually, only as office buildings, roads, light and power, water and communications are completed.
Two provisions deserve separate attention. Section 4 places the government center outside local policies, measures and issuances that would run counter to the primacy of uninterrupted government service. And Section 7 requires the existing center in Cotabato City to be improved rather than abandoned, preserved for its historical value, and renamed once the move is complete.
Fifty million pesos funds the first year, with foreign grants and donations permitted alongside the regional budget. The Committee dissolves when the job is done, and in any event within 10 years unless Parliament extends it.
Why it was proposed
The act says only that the region has power to organize its own bureaucracy in the exercise of self-governance. It offers no stated reason for moving, and none for choosing Parang — which, for a decision of this magnitude, is a conspicuous silence.
Who it affects
- Residents of Parang, whose municipality becomes the regional capital.
- Cotabato City, which loses the seat of government it currently hosts.
- Every government employee who would eventually relocate.
- Anyone who travels to the regional government for services.
- Local government units along the way, whom the Committee must consult.
Who would implement it
- Committee on the Establishment of the Seat of Government, chaired by the Senior Minister
- Bangsamoro Parliament, which must approve the specific site
- Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority and the ministries seated on the Committee
Funding
Carries an appropriation. ₱50,000,000 for the Committee's first year, including the master plan, with later amounts through the General Appropriations Act of the Bangsamoro. Foreign grants, aid and donations may also be used, subject to Inter-Governmental Fiscal Policy Board guidelines. The act appropriates planning money; the cost of building a capital is nowhere estimated.
What changes if it becomes law
- The region's seat of government moves from Cotabato City to Parang.
- A planning committee with a ten-year life is created, with Parliament approving the site.
- The new government center sits partly outside local government authority.
- The existing Cotabato City center is preserved, improved and eventually renamed.
- Foreign grants become an express funding channel.
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
Cotabato City is the fact this act does not mention. It is not part of Maguindanao — it is a chartered city that voted in the 2019 plebiscite to join the Bangsamoro, and it has hosted the regional government ever since. Moving the seat to Parang relocates the capital out of that city and into the province. The act frames the whole thing as bureaucratic organization and offers no reasoning, but the geography carries an argument the text declines to make.
Section 4 is the provision to watch. Excluding the government center from local policies 'that would run counter to the primacy of uninterrupted government service' is drafted broadly enough to cover a great deal, and it creates an enclave of regional authority inside a municipality that is simultaneously promised consultation and dialogue. Which of those prevails in a real dispute is not answered here.
The design is otherwise careful in ways worth crediting. The transfer is conditioned on infrastructure actually existing rather than on a date, which avoids the standard failure of capital-moving projects — ministers decanted into a building site. Parliament must approve the site, so the choice of ground is not the executive's alone. Civil society is written in, if only as observers. And the old capital is to be preserved rather than left to decay, with its renaming treated as a matter for consultation. What is missing is a cost: fifty million pesos plans a capital, it does not build one, and the act never says what the real figure might be.