Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 7
In forceAn Act Adopting the Official Hymn of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
Schools, colleges, universities, public offices and government corporations must play and sing the hymn at flag-raising and flag-lowering ceremonies — always after the Philippine National Anthem, never before it. Arabic, English and Bangsamoro-language versions approved by the Chief Minister are equally official.
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Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.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 adopts the Bangsamoro Hymn and prints its lyrics in full inside the law — four stanzas and a refrain, opening 'Simula noon hanggang ngayon, iisa ang naging layon' and returning each time to 'Bangsamoro'y tagumpay, bunga ng pawis, dugo, at buhay… Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Pagpalain Bangsamoro'.
Every school in the region — private as much as public — every public office, every government corporation, and every Bangsamoro office sitting outside the region must play and sing it at flag-raising and flag-lowering. Rendition has to follow the official musical arrangement. Versions in Arabic, English, or any Bangsamoro language or dialect are equally official once the Chief Minister approves them. And the Philippine National Anthem must always be sung first.
Then Section 6, which is what sets this act apart from every other symbols law the Parliament has passed: any person wilfully violating any provision faces, on conviction, a fine of ₱50,000 to ₱100,000, or up to 6 months in prison, or both.
Why it was proposed
The same self-governance clause of the Organic Law that produced the flag and the emblem. The particular work this act does is fixing the words: an anthem transmitted by singing drifts, and a region assembling a shared identity out of several languages and two armed movements had reason to write the text down once, definitively.
Who it affects
- Every school, college and university in the region — the act names private institutions expressly.
- Public offices, government-owned or controlled corporations and other government instrumentalities.
- Bangsamoro offices outside the area of autonomy, which are required to sing it too.
- Any person performing or rendering the hymn, who falls within the reach of the penalty clause.
- Communities that do not speak the language of the original, who may use an approved version in Arabic, English, or a Bangsamoro language.
Who would implement it
- No implementing body is named. The duty falls on each school and office directly; the penalty is enforced by the courts on conviction.
Funding
No appropriation. The act appropriates nothing — no funding for the arrangement, for teaching materials, or for approving alternative-language versions. Its only figures are penal: ₱50,000 to ₱100,000, and up to 6 months' imprisonment.
What changes if it becomes law
- The region gains an anthem whose words are fixed by statute rather than by custom.
- Singing it becomes compulsory at flag ceremonies in schools and offices, private schools included.
- The order is settled in law: the Philippine National Anthem first, always.
- Arabic, English and Bangsamoro-language versions gain equal official standing.
- Wilful violation becomes a criminal offence — the only one across the region's symbols laws.
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 the three symbols acts side by side and the inconsistency is hard to miss. The flag act requires display and attaches no penalty. The emblem act — the mark that authenticates official documents, where forgery is a genuine risk — creates no offence either. The hymn act, alone, makes wilful violation punishable by up to 6 months in prison.
And it does it in the loosest available form. There is no list of prohibited acts. Section 6 penalises violating 'any provision', which on its face reaches performing the hymn in a non-official arrangement, or singing it before the national anthem rather than after. A criminal provision that does not say what conduct it criminalises leaves the boundary to prosecutorial judgement, which is a lot of discretion to attach to a song.
The language clause pulls the other way and is the most generous thing in the act. Arabic, English, or any Bangsamoro language or dialect — approved by the Chief Minister — is fully official, not a courtesy translation. In a region where the anthem's own text is in Filipino rather than in any of the Bangsamoro languages, that clause is what keeps the hymn from belonging to only some of the people it is meant to unite.