Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and Management
Approved as BAA No. 33Now
Parliament Bill No. 128
ApprovedCabinet measureAn Act Extending the General Appropriations Act of the Bangsamoro Until December 31, 2023, Except Personnel Services, Amending for the Purpose Section 48 of the General Provisions of the 2022 General Appropriations Act of the Bangsamoro
Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and Management
Approved as BAA No. 33Now
Passed third reading. This measure has cleared Parliament.
What this measure does
This rewrites Section 48 of BAA 23, the 2022 General Appropriations Act of the Bangsamoro, to keep the year's budget alive through 2023 — with personnel services carved out.
Everything except personnel services stays available for release and disbursement, under the same general and special provisions, until 31 December 2023, as does the constituent local governments' share of income taxes collected within the region. Infrastructure capital outlays may be obligated to the end of 2023 with construction, inspection and payment running to 30 June 2024; operating expenses and other capital outlays may be obligated to the end of 2023 with delivery, inspection and payment to 31 March 2024. Personnel services, by contrast, stay valid only until 31 December 2022 — salaries do not get extended.
The provision also states what happens at the end. Unreleased appropriations lapse. Unexpended or undisbursed funds revert to the Bangsamoro Treasury under a Special Fund for reappropriation under Section 19, Article XII of the Organic Law. Ministries and offices are directed to observe both rules strictly.
Why it was proposed
No explanatory note is attached. The structure of the amendment says what happened: a budget written on a cash basis, to be spent within its own year, reached the end of that year with a substantial part of it unspent.
The carve-out for personnel services is the tell that this is about delivery rather than payroll. Salaries were paid; the projects, goods and services were not.
Who it affects
- Every ministry and office holding unspent 2022 appropriations.
- Constituent local government units, whose share of income taxes collected in the region stays available through 2023.
- Contractors and suppliers on 2022 procurements, whose delivery and payment windows extend into 2024.
- Bangsamoro government employees, who are expressly excluded — personnel services expire on schedule.
- The Bangsamoro Treasury, which receives whatever is still unspent when the extension runs out.
Who would implement it
- Ministry of Finance, Budget and Management (MFBM) — guidelines for implementing the amended cash budgeting provision
- Ministries and offices, directed to observe the validity of appropriations and the reversion of funds
Funding
No appropriation. No new money. The bill extends the availability of appropriations already made in BAA 23, and expressly does not extend personnel services.
What changes if it becomes law
- The 2022 regional budget, except salaries, stays spendable through 2023.
- Local governments' share of income taxes collected in the region stays disbursable through 2023.
- Infrastructure may be completed and paid to 30 June 2024; goods and operating items to 31 March 2024.
- Personnel services expire on 31 December 2022 regardless.
- Whatever is left after the extension reverts to a Special Fund in the Treasury for reappropriation.
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 reversion clause is the part worth reading closely, because it is the only place in this short bill where the region says what it does with money it could not spend. Unreleased appropriations lapse; unexpended balances go back to the Treasury into a Special Fund, to be reappropriated under Section 19, Article XII of the Organic Law. That is a proper fiscal loop rather than a quiet rollover — and it is precisely the loop that each successive extension act defers by another year.
Which is what happened here. This bill extended the 2022 budget to the end of 2023; Bill No. 265, filed in November 2023, amends the very same Section 48 again, exempting General Administration and Support under operating expenses as well and letting appropriations under the Special Development Fund run until fully expended. Section 48 of BAA 23 has now been rewritten twice by 2 separate acts, each time enlarging what stays alive.
The exclusion of personnel services is the clearest signal in the sequence. Salaries are spent on time; capital and operating budgets are not. Whatever is slowing the region's spending, it is not the payroll — it is procurement, construction and delivery, which is what every date in this bill is written to accommodate.
Enacted as BAA 33 on 22 December 2022, 9 days before the budget it extends would have expired.
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