An Act Appropriating Funds for the Operation of the Bangsamoro Government from January One to December Thirty-One, Two Thousand and Twenty-Five and for Other Purposes

This is the region's budget for 2025 — ₱94,411,666,856.24 — and it is the only Bangsamoro budget ever to be smaller than the one before it. FY 2024 was ₱98.47 billion; this is 4.1% less.

The money comes from the annual block grant, other subsidies from the National Government, the region's share of national taxes collected inside its territory, and “other revenues”. That last phrase is doing quiet work: the FY 2024 act had spelled out two further sources — unutilized prior years' appropriations, and unutilized prior year's allotments reverted to the Treasury — and this act folds them into a catch-all.

It funds 17 ministries, 11 other executive offices and 7 special purpose funds. The Local Government Support Fund reaches ₱10,153,071,200, nearly 11% of the whole budget and the largest special purpose fund by far. Two new funds appear: ₱27,480,000 for the Shari'ah courts and ₱500,000,000 for Bangsamoro under special circumstances. The Contingent Fund, which was ₱13.2 billion in the region's first budget, is down to ₱666,798,436.24. The Bangsamoro Transition Authority receives ₱5,330,726,658, about 5.6% of the total.

The last 23 pages carry 76 sections of general provisions, and several are new. Section 10 lets the Chief Minister invest idle funds in treasury bills, with Parliament's approval and a quarterly report. Section 17 makes the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System the primary channel for all procurement. Section 45 adds a medical allowance of up to ₱7,000 a year, and Section 47 gives government lawyers ₱5,000 for each court appearance — but not for appearances before quasi-judicial or administrative agencies, and never more than half a month's basic salary. Section 54 finally says out loud what five earlier budgets only implied in a heading: no retention or deduction of funds as reserves or overhead, except as authorised by law.

And Section 30 addresses the Province of Sulu. Programs and projects intended for Sulu “shall continue to be implemented”, the personnel needed for them stay funded, and the Bangsamoro Government, its National Government counterparts and the Sulu local governments are to design a Transition Plan through the Intergovernmental Relations Body.

The Bangsamoro Government needs an annual appropriations act to function. This one was passed on 10 December 2024 and signed by the Chief Minister the following day, 3 weeks before it took effect. It carries the same theme as the FY 2024 budget — “Accelerating Structural Reforms, Boosting Sustainable Development, and Enhancing Human Capital in the Bangsamoro” — set out on the cover as an acronym.

This is the only Bangsamoro budget that shrinks. Every other year the total rises — ₱75.63 billion, ₱79.86 billion, ₱85.36 billion, ₱98.47 billion, then ₱94.41 billion, then ₱114.08 billion. The dip lands in the same act that first has to reckon with losing a province.

Section 30 is that reckoning, and its date matters: the Supreme Court issued the resolution it quotes on 26 November 2024, and Parliament passed this act on 10 December — 14 days later. The provision does not say Sulu has left, and it does not adjust any figure. It says the programs “shall continue to be implemented”, the personnel “shall continue to be funded”, and a Transition Plan “shall” be designed with the National Government and the Sulu local governments. That is a budget written to hold a position while the legal ground moves underneath it. The FY 2026 act goes further, citing Executive Order No. 91 by name and putting a stop-date on the salary funding; here the language is still open-ended.

Two other figures sit near that one without the act connecting them. The Pension and Gratuity Fund rises from ₱416,115,167 to ₱1,720,911,583, roughly quadrupling in a year in which the budget as a whole falls. And Section 1's list of revenue sources, which had grown more specific every year since FY 2021, contracts to “and other revenues” — a vaguer formula, in the year the region's revenue base became a live question.

The long arc of the special purpose funds reaches its clearest point here. The Contingent Fund — a general-purpose reserve the Chief Minister could direct — was ₱13.2 billion in FY 2020, 20% of the entire budget. It is ₱666,798,436.24 now, 0.7%. Over the same period the Local Government Support Fund went from not existing to ₱10.15 billion, 10.8% of the budget, going to named local governments under a formula. That is the single most consequential change in how the region budgets, and no provision announces it; it is only visible by lining up 6 acts side by side.

Section 54 is a small but genuine correction. The FY 2020 and FY 2021 acts had a section headed “Prohibition Against Retention or Deduction of Funds” whose text contained no prohibition — only a statement that releases shall be transmitted to the ministry concerned. FY 2022, FY 2023 and FY 2024 dropped even the word “Prohibition” from the heading. Here the heading returns and, for the first time in 6 budgets, so does the rule: “No retention or deduction as reserves or overhead shall be made, except as authorized by law.”

Parliament's own line is worth stating plainly. Its ₱5,330,726,658 is 5.6% of the budget, up from 4.5% three years earlier, in a year the budget contracted. This is also the first act to itemise Personnel Services by sub-program, and doing so reveals a Representation Program of ₱1,654,656,000 slightly exceeding the Legislation Program of ₱1,606,101,039, with Representation Expenses alone accounting for ₱1,422,560,744 of the chamber's running costs. Representation is legitimate legislative work. A representation line larger than the legislation line, in a body of appointed members, in the last full budget before the region's first parliamentary elections, is a proportion that belongs in the public record.