Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 66
In forceAn Act Establishing a Level 1 General Hospital with Twenty-Five Bed Capacity in the Municipality of South Ubian, Province of Tawi-Tawi to Be Known as the South Ubian General Hospital and Appropriating Funds Therefor
A Level 1 general hospital is established under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Health, which determines its structure and plantilla positions and integrates the Universal Health Care Act into its operations.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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
A twenty-five bed Level 1 general hospital is established in South Ubian, Tawi-Tawi. It sits under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Health, which decides its organizational structure and — a detail worth noting — its plantilla positions, so the permanent posts are created rather than left to follow. The Universal Health Care Act is integrated into how it operates.
The purpose clause does something the mainland hospital acts do not need to: it names the neighbouring islands. In Tawi-Tawi the catchment of a hospital is not a radius on a map, it is whoever can reach it by boat, and the act writes that in.
And it names a number. Fifty million pesos, charged against the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund of the 2025 Bangsamoro budget, with operations thereafter carried in the annual appropriations.
Why it was proposed
An island municipality without a hospital sends every admission across water. The act frames the facility as essential to the effective delivery of the health system and to ensuring health services are accessible at all times to the people in need.
Who it affects
- Residents of South Ubian.
- People on the neighbouring islands, expressly named in the purpose clause.
- Health workers taking up the plantilla positions the Ministry of Health approves.
Who would implement it
- Ministry of Health – BARMM, with direct supervision, approving the organizational structure and plantilla positions and determining the required units and services
Funding
Carries an appropriation. ₱50,000,000 initial, charged against the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund of the 2025 General Appropriation Act of the Bangsamoro, with operations thereafter in the annual appropriations.
What changes if it becomes law
- An island municipality gains a hospital with 25 beds.
- The catchment expressly includes the neighbouring islands.
- Permanent health posts are created through an approved plantilla.
- Universal Health Care provisions enter the hospital's operations.
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
Set this against the June 2022 hospital cluster and the drafting has moved on considerably. Those acts authorised capacity against 'such amount as may be needed'; this one states fifty million pesos and names the fund it comes from. That is the single most useful change a citizen can ask for — a figure and a source turn an aspiration into something an auditor can follow.
The island clause is the other piece of real thinking. A hospital act written for the mainland can leave the catchment implicit; here the act says the people of South Ubian *and its neighbouring islands*, which affects how the facility is sized and staffed and gives residents of those islands a claim on it in the text rather than by inference.
What is still missing across the whole series is time. There is no completion date, no construction schedule and no report-back. Fifty million is an initial amount for a hospital that does not yet exist, and nothing in the act says when it should.