Filed
Fiest Reading
Referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and ManagementNow
Parliament Bill No. 167
Second readingAn Act Providing Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Madaris in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Appropriating Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes
Filed
Fiest Reading
Referred to the Committee on Finance, Budget and ManagementNow
Under committee study or floor debate. Amendments are still possible, and this is the stage where public input carries the most weight.
What this measure does
The Madaris Education Assistance Act of 2023 puts money into private Islamic schools — madaris — by paying three different recipients directly.
Students get tuition of not less than ₱1,000 a year, reading materials, and a nutrition and feeding program for the young ones. Teachers — gurus, the bill uses the Arabic term and defines it — get an allowance of not less than ₱2,000 a month plus a faculty education development program. The madrasah itself gets classroom facilities, named down to desks, tables and chalkboards, and textbook assistance.
The faculty program is the most substantial piece: scholarships for master’s and doctorate degrees, in the country and outside it, plus seminars and training. Anyone who qualifies to study abroad must sign an undertaking to return and serve for a period set against the length of the scholarship.
Eligibility is narrow and stated. Priority goes to students whose family income is not more than ₱40,000 a year. Assistance runs only to Muslim students who are Filipino citizens and residents of the Bangsamoro, who are not already receiving another government scholarship, who are enrolled in a madrasah, and who have not transferred to one outside the region. MBHTE, through the Bureau of Madaris Education, sets the criteria, accredits which madaris qualify, and assesses whether the schools receiving the money are still teaching well.
Why it was proposed
The policy section grounds it in Section 16, Article IX of the Bangsamoro Organic Law — the mandate to establish and maintain a complete and adequate system of education responsive to the needs and aspirations of the Bangsamoro people — and says the way to improve quality in the madaris is to assist the teachers and the students directly.
The unstated premise is that madaris are community-based and privately operated. They sit outside the public school funding system, they teach a large share of Bangsamoro children, and until something like this passes there is no standing mechanism for regional money to reach them.
Who it affects
- Students in madaris across the region, with priority to those whose family income is ₱40,000 a year or less.
- Gurus, who would receive a monthly allowance and access to postgraduate scholarships abroad.
- Madaris as institutions, which would receive classroom furniture and textbooks.
- Students already holding another government scholarship, who are expressly excluded.
- Non-Muslim students, who are outside the stated coverage.
- MBHTE and the Bureau of Madaris Education, which would have to build an accreditation system to run any of it.
Who would implement it
- Ministry of Basic, Higher, and Technical Education (MBHTE), for policy guidance, monitoring and the implementing rules
- Bureau of Madaris Education (BME), which delivers the assistance and, with MBHTE, sets the income criterion
Funding
Carries an appropriation. No total is stated. MBHTE determines the amount necessary for initial implementation, and later years go into the annual Bangsamoro appropriations. The only hard figures in the bill are the floors on individual benefits — not less than ₱1,000 per student per year and not less than ₱2,000 per guru per month — and the ₱40,000 annual family income mark that sets priority.
What changes if it becomes law
- Regional money reaches privately operated madaris for the first time through a standing mechanism.
- Gurus gain a monthly allowance with a floor of ₱2,000 and access to postgraduate scholarships.
- Students in madaris gain a tuition subsidy, reading materials and a feeding program.
- MBHTE must build an accreditation policy to determine which madaris qualify.
- Assistance is conditioned on continued quality, which MBHTE is required to assess.
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
Every benefit in this bill is a floor rather than a figure. Not less than ₱1,000 a year, not less than ₱2,000 a month: generous drafting in one sense, because nothing caps what MBHTE may pay, and empty in another, because the bill sets no total and MBHTE decides the initial appropriation itself. What the law guarantees is a minimum per head; what it costs is settled somewhere else entirely.
The floors themselves are worth reading against the region. ₱1,000 a year in tuition and ₱2,000 a month for a teacher are modest sums, and the ₱40,000 annual family income that triggers priority is well under the national poverty threshold for a family of five — which means the priority mark will catch a very large share of the households the bill is aimed at rather than distinguishing between them.
The scholarship clause is the quiet ambition in it. Master’s and doctorate study abroad for madrasah teachers, with a return-service undertaking, is a serious investment in a teaching corps that has largely had no route to formal postgraduate credentials.
The coverage clause runs to Muslim students only. In a region with substantial non-Muslim indigenous communities that is a real limit, though it follows from what a madrasah is; it is stated here because the bill states it and a reader should not have to infer it.
Sources