An Act Establishing the Special Madrasah Fund to Provide Sustainable Financial Surges for the Reinvention, Pilot Testing and Implementation of Quality and Competitive Balanced Basic Madrasah Education Curricular in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao

Where Bill 167 pays for madrasah education as it exists, this one proposes to rebuild the curriculum underneath it.

The bill creates a Special Madrasah Fund to review, redesign, pilot test and then implement a balanced basic madrasah curriculum from Grade 1 to Senior High School. "Balanced" is the operative word and the text defines it at length: curricula that are interactively balanced for the spiritual and worldly development of the learner, that integrate the core subjects of mainstream basic education in deeply contextualised form, and that guarantee parallelism with — the text says if not superiority to — what DepEd prescribes for standard madaris.

The method is set out as a sequence. Existing curricula and textbooks are reviewed and redesigned; a Project Management Team merges related subjects to cut what the bill calls information overload; the result is field-tested in at least two qualified madaris for elementary and two for secondary in each province and in the Special Geographic Area; it is enhanced on the results, adopted in transition elsewhere for terminal validation, packaged, and then implemented by at least one madrasah for each level in every municipality and city in the region.

Governance sits with a Special Madrasah Fund Board chaired by the Directorate General for Madaris Education, with the Directorate Generals for Basic and Technical Education as associate chairpersons, and members drawn from the most prominent regional madaris association, the dominant registered ulama federation, and the regional offices of DepEd, TESDA, the Commission on Muslim Filipinos and the finance ministry. The Chief Minister appoints them for three years and may revoke an appointment for disgraceful or immoral conduct or corrupt practice. Board membership must be balanced across expertise in Islamic scholarship, curriculum development, school management, and fund administration.

The destination is accreditation. The bill’s stated ultimate goal is that DepEd recognize the madrasah as a Standard Muslim Education Institution and issue Learning Accreditation and Equivalency certificates, so a madrasah completer can transfer into the state system, enrol at the next level, or present the certificate as an educational qualification for a job.

The explanatory note makes an argument few filed bills bother with. It says the balanced madrasah is idealised and does not exist: the madaris DepEd accredits as Standard Private Madrasah are balanced only in the sense that five core subjects have been added on top of the Qur’an, Seerah, Hadith, Aqeedah, Fiqh and Arabic, which produces information overload rather than integration. It cites the Constitution’s education article and Section 16 of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, and it argues its theological case from Surah Al-Qasas 28:77 and a hadith on not surrendering either world for the other.

The practical driver is the Learning Accreditation and Equivalency certificate. Without it, years spent in a madrasah convert into nothing a state school or an employer will count.

The whole design turns on something the Bangsamoro Parliament cannot legislate. The Learning Accreditation and Equivalency certificate is issued by DepEd, a national department, and the bill can fund the curriculum, staff the board and run the pilots but cannot make DepEd recognize the result. The text is careful about this — it says the measure creates the "potentiality" that DepEd would accredit, and that the mechanics are for the Department to set in collaboration with MBHTE. That is honest drafting, and it also means the bill’s stated ultimate goal is an outcome it can only make more likely.

The appropriations clause has aged. It names the provinces where pilot testing is to happen and the list includes Sulu, which the Supreme Court removed from the Bangsamoro in 2024, after this bill was filed in May 2023. Section 5, which sets out the same pilot design, refers instead to "every province of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region" and the Special Geographic Area — wording that survives the change. The two clauses now describe different maps.

One more thing worth noticing: the board seats are drawn from the "most prominent" regional madaris association and the "most dominant" registered ulama federation. Neither superlative is defined, and in a region with several competing ulama bodies, deciding which one is dominant is a political act the bill hands to whoever makes the appointment.