Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 50
In forceCabinet measureAn Act Creating the Bangsamoro Kulliyyah for Islamic Studies, Repealing Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act No. 164, Otherwise Known as the Regional Madrasah Graduate Education Act of 2003, Providing Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes
The Bangsamoro Kulliyyah for Islamic Studies is created as a corporate body attached to the education ministry, governed by a Board of Trustees that seats students, faculty, alumni, the Bangsamoro Mufti and a private Islamic institution representative alongside government officials. It keeps its own tuition and income as special trust funds, may set socialised tuition for poor students, and may establish branches across the BARMM.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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 takes the ARMM-era Regional Madrasah Graduate Academy at Buluan, abolishes its 2003 charter, and rebuilds it as a chartered regional institution of higher learning — the Bangsamoro Kulliyyah for Islamic Studies — offering baccalaureate and postgraduate degrees in Islamic studies and Arabic.
The governance is the notable part. A Board of Trustees chaired by the education Minister holds the highest policy-making power, and its membership reaches well beyond officialdom: the president of the faculty association, the president of the Student Government Organization, the president of the Alumni Association, a representative of private Islamic institutions recognized by the ministry, and the Bangsamoro Mufti all sit on it as members.
Financially it is given something most attached agencies are not: its own money. Tuition, fees, government subsidies and income from auxiliary services and land grants become special trust funds that the Kulliyyah retains and the Board disburses, with interest staying in the fund. Donations to it are exempt from all taxes and deductible from the donor's income tax. Against that, the Board must run a socialised tuition scheme for poor but deserving students.
And Section 19, in a single sentence, says the Kulliyyah shall not discriminate on the basis of color, race, religion, sex or disability in admissions, employment or any program.
Why it was proposed
The academy was operating under a twenty-year-old ARMM statute. A region committed to an educational system that is “a subsystem of the national education system” needed an institution that could actually award recognized degrees in Islamic and Arabic studies, rather than an academy whose graduates' credentials sat awkwardly against the national framework.
Who it affects
- Madrasah graduates seeking degree-level study.
- Students, faculty and alumni, each with a seat on the governing board.
- Private Islamic institutions recognized by the education ministry.
- Personnel of the defunct REMAcademy, transitioned within 90 days.
- Communities elsewhere in the region, where branches may be opened.
Who would implement it
- Board of Trustees, chaired by the Minister of Basic, Higher and Technical Education, meeting at least quarterly
- Office of the President of the Kulliyyah, appointed by the Chief Minister from at least three Board-endorsed nominees for a four-year term renewable once
- Academic Council, chaired by the President and composed of academic staff at Assistant Professor rank and above
- MBHTE, holding direct supervision, regulatory powers, the staffing pattern and the implementing rules
Funding
Carries an appropriation. No peso figure is appropriated. Initial implementation is charged against the current year's appropriations, and continued operation and maintenance is carried in the education ministry's budget under the annual appropriations act. The institution's own tuition, fees, subsidies, auxiliary service income and land grant income are retained as special trust funds it may disburse itself.
What changes if it becomes law
- The region gains a chartered institution awarding degrees in Islamic studies and Arabic.
- Students, faculty and alumni take seats on its governing board.
- The institution keeps and spends its own tuition and income.
- Socialised tuition becomes a requirement, and discrimination on religion or disability is barred.
- The Regional Madrasah Graduate Education Act of 2003 is repealed and the academy absorbed.
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
Section 19 is the sentence to notice, because of where it appears. An institution created specifically for Islamic studies, with the Bangsamoro Mufti on its board, is told in plain terms that it may not discriminate on the basis of religion in admissions, employment or any program. Read alongside BAA 64's direction that the Tribal University shall be open to all “regardless of religion, ethnicity or nationality” while prioritizing indigenous learners, a consistent drafting instinct shows through: the region builds institutions rooted in a particular community and then writes the door open. Whether that reflects conviction or a careful eye on the constitutional limits of a subsystem of the national education system, the effect is the same.
The financial design is the other thing worth pulling out, and it is unusually generous by the standards of this registry. Most bodies created by these acts get a peso figure and then depend on the annual budget. This one gets no figure at all — but it gets to keep its own money. Tuition, fees, subsidies, auxiliary income, land grant income, and the interest on all of it, become special trust funds the Board disburses “any provision of existing laws, rules, and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding”. Donations come in tax-free and leave the donor's income tax lighter. For an institution expected to build itself up, that combination is worth more than a one-off appropriation — provided it can attract enough students and donors to make the retention meaningful, which for a specialised institution in Buluan is not a small proviso.
Where the autonomy stops is equally clear. The education ministry chairs the Board, holds direct supervision and regulatory powers, and determines the complete staffing pattern. The Chief Minister appoints the President — from the Board's shortlist, but the choice is not the Board's — and appoints everyone at Salary Grade 25 and above. The President sits at Salary Grade 26, below the head of any of the region's commissions, and below several division chiefs elsewhere in the bureaucracy. An institution can be given its own money and its own board and still be quite firmly held; this one is.