Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 53
In forceAn Act Creating the Municipality of Nuling in the Province of Maguindanao Del Norte, Providing Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes
If ratified, 19 barangays become a distinct and independent municipality with its own mayor, vice-mayor and eight-member council, seated at Barangay Pinaring — and entitled to its own share of national taxes.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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 nineteen barangays out of the Municipality of Sultan Kudarat and makes them a municipality of their own, to be called Nuling, seated at Barangay Pinaring — which the act renames the Poblacion.
Nothing happens on signature. Section 5 makes corporate existence depend on a plebiscite: a majority of the votes cast by qualified voters in those nineteen barangays, held within 60 days of approval, run by COMELEC and paid for out of the region's Contingent Fund under the 2024 budget. Until that vote, Nuling exists only on paper.
If it passes, the Chief Minister appoints the first mayor, vice-mayor and eight council members, who hold office until the next regular election. And because a new municipality has no tax base until the national revenue allotment reaches it, the Bangsamoro Government must provide not less than ₱2.5 million every month to run it in the meantime.
Why it was proposed
The Organic Law gives the region power to redraw its own local government map — creating, dividing, merging or abolishing municipalities and barangays by act of Parliament — subject in every case to ratification by the people directly affected. This is that power being used.
Who it affects
- Residents of the nineteen named barangays, who both vote on the change and live with the result.
- Residents of what remains of Sultan Kudarat, the mother municipality, which loses nineteen barangays.
- Incumbent Sangguniang Bayan members of Sultan Kudarat who live in the new municipality — they finish their terms serving the mother municipality, not the new one.
- Bangsamoro taxpayers, who fund ₱2.5 million a month until the revenue allotment arrives.
Who would implement it
- Commission on Elections, which conducts and supervises the plebiscite
- Office of the Chief Minister, which appoints the first municipal officials
- Bangsamoro Government, which appropriates the monthly financial assistance
Funding
Carries an appropriation. Not less than ₱2,500,000 every month for the administration and operation of the new municipal government, until it is allocated its share in the revenue allotment. The plebiscite itself is charged to the BARMM Contingent Fund under the fiscal year 2024 appropriations. At that floor the assistance runs to at least ₱30 million a year.
What changes if it becomes law
- Nineteen barangays leave Sultan Kudarat and form a distinct and independent municipality, if the plebiscite passes.
- A new local government is seated at Pinaring, closer to the people it serves.
- The municipality becomes entitled to its own share of national taxes.
- A monthly subsidy floor of ₱2.5 million bridges the gap until that share arrives.
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
The plebiscite is the act's own check on itself, and it is worth noticing how narrowly it is drawn. The vote is held only in the barangays being carved out — the people leaving Sultan Kudarat decide, and those staying behind do not. Section 1 speaks of 'the political units directly affected', and the act reads that as the departing barangays alone, even though the mother municipality loses nineteen barangays and whatever revenue they represent.
The appointment provision is the other thing a reader should not skim past. A municipality created to bring government closer to its people begins with a mayor, a vice-mayor and eight councillors none of whom its people chose; all ten are appointed by the Chief Minister and serve until the next regular election. That is a defensible transitional arrangement — there is no other way to stand up a local government mid-cycle — but it means the first act of a new municipality's self-government is performed by someone in Cotabato City.
What the act does not contain is any measure of the thing it creates. No land area, no population, no revenue projection, and no statement of why nineteen barangays rather than some other number. The ₱2.5 million monthly floor is the only number in it, and nothing in the text lets a reader judge whether that is generous or thin for the population involved.