Filed
Enhanced
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Health, Committee on Finance, Budget and Management
Committee Report No. 151 RE: Bill No. 105 Adopted
Approved on Second Reading
Approved on Third and Final Reading
BAA No. 79Now
Parliament Bill No. 105
ApprovedAn Act Establishing a Level I General Hospital in the Municipality of Maluso, Province of Basilan, and Appropriating Funds Therefor
Filed
Enhanced
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Health, Committee on Finance, Budget and Management
Committee Report No. 151 RE: Bill No. 105 Adopted
Approved on Second Reading
Approved on Third and Final Reading
BAA No. 79Now
Passed third reading. This measure has cleared Parliament.
What this measure does
This establishes a Level I general hospital of 25 beds in Maluso, Basilan, under the direct administrative and technical supervision of the Basilan Integrated Provincial Health Office.
It is the twin of the Tipo-Tipo bill filed the same day by the same authors, and the operative text is the same scheme: the regional Ministry of Health writes the operating guidelines and ensures funding for the building, the complementary infrastructure, the facilities and medical equipment, and the maintenance and personnel costs, while the provincial health office runs the hospital. The Chief of Hospital files an annual development plan with the ministry, and personnel, capital outlays and budget follow from it — as does any future increase in bed capacity or upgrade of services.
Why it was proposed
Maluso is a 4th class municipality on the western coast of Basilan: 304.14 square kilometers, 20 barangays, about 5,907 households. Its health provision is one rural health unit and 15 barangay health stations, staffed by 1 doctor on a memorandum of agreement, 12 nurses and 15 barangay health workers.
The note's argument is about distance and its cost. Residents needing hospital services travel to the neighbouring municipality of Sumisip, and the note puts the financial burden of that travel at the center of the case: the inability to afford transport to reach hospital-based services denies people care that is theirs by right under the law. It also writes in the moment it was drafted — health emergencies "especially during this pandemic" — and ties accessible health services to lasting peace and to holding the gains of the people and the government.
Who it affects
- The roughly 5,907 households of Maluso, served by 1 memorandum-of-agreement doctor across 20 barangays.
- Patients currently travelling to Sumisip for hospital care, and those for whom the fare is the barrier.
- The rural health unit and the 15 barangay health stations, whose referral destination changes.
- The Basilan Integrated Provincial Health Office, which under this version would supervise the hospital directly.
- The Ministry of Health, obliged to fund construction, equipment, maintenance and personnel.
Who would implement it
- Basilan Integrated Provincial Health Office — direct administrative and technical supervision
- BARMM Ministry of Health — operating guidelines and funding for construction, infrastructure, equipment, maintenance and personnel
- The Chief of Hospital, who files the annual development plan that sets personnel, capital outlay and budget
Funding
Carries an appropriation. No amount is named. The Ministry of Health is to ensure funding for the hospital building, complementary infrastructure, facilities and medical equipment, and for maintenance and personnel services, with the annual development plan setting each year's requirement. The enacted act put ₱50 million behind it, from the 2025 General Appropriations Act of the Bangsamoro.
What changes if it becomes law
- Maluso gains a 25-bed Level I hospital where it had a rural health unit and 15 barangay health stations.
- Residents stop travelling to Sumisip for hospital-based care.
- The provincial health office takes administrative and technical charge, with the regional ministry funding it.
- Bed capacity and service upgrades follow an annual development plan rather than new legislation.
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
This bill and Bill No. 104 are the same bill with a different municipality in it, and they became BAA 79 and BAA 78 on the same day — with Sections 5 and 6 word for word identical in both acts. That is worth naming plainly: the region drafted a template for handing a regional hospital to a province, and used it twice at once.
The template inverts what this bill proposed. Here the Basilan provincial health office supervises from the start; in BAA 79 the regional ministry holds administrative supervision and operational control, and the province receives the hospital only on a formal request the ministry concurs in, or on a favourable ministry assessment repeated every 5 years — with a joint transition plan phasing the handover within 1 year under the watch of Parliament's Committee on Health.
The drafting of the twin acts differs in one word, and it is the revealing one. BAA 78 headed the continuing-support provision a sunset; BAA 79 headed the same provision a "Continuity Provision". Both keep the ministry supplying technical support and, where the province cannot manage, paying for personnel salaries and essential medicines. Whether that is an ending or a continuation is exactly the question a devolution clause has to answer, and the two acts answer it with the same text under 2 different headings.
Sources