An Act Providing for the Documentation of Human Rights Violations During the Armed Conflict in Mindanao, Recognition of Victims, Appropriating Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes

This is the most specific document in the registry about what happened during the conflict, and it is specific because it names things.

The period is fixed exactly: 18 March 1968 to 6 February 2019 — from the Jabidah massacre to the ratification of the Organic Law. Within that window the Act covers violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed by State actors and State-affiliated armed groups. Victims are defined to include persons killed, tortured, raped or sexually assaulted, mutilated or injured; internally displaced persons; widows and orphans of war; and persons whose property was destroyed or forcibly taken.

The definition of State-affiliated armed groups names them: the Ilaga, the Blackshirts, the Barracudas, the Civilian Armed Force Geographical Unit, the Civilian Volunteer Forces and the Special CAFGU Armed Auxiliary, alongside the former Philippine Constabulary, the Integrated National Police, the AFP, the PNP and the Civilian Home Defense Group — and any group organised, funded, equipped, indoctrinated, controlled or supervised by a person acting in an official capacity.

Section 6 then lists the emblematic cases the documentation must focus on, drawn from the 2016 Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission report. Disproportionate force and mass atrocity by State actors: the Jabidah massacre, the burning of Jolo in February 1974, the Malisbong massacre. Violations by State-affiliated groups: the Ilaga campaign of 1970 to 1972, the Manlili massacre, massacres in Lamitan City, Tuburan and Bagumbayan in Sultan Kudarat, the Maguindanao/Ampatuan massacre, killings by the Special CAFGU Armed Auxiliary employed by David M. Consunji, Inc. from 1986 to 1990, the Tingin-Tingin massacre and the Pata massacre. And 5 named displacement events, from the fighting in Upi and Cotabato in 1970 to the clashes of February 2003 and August 2008.

The work goes to the Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission, which must establish the facts, assess them against international law, reach conclusions on whether a violation occurred and where possible identify victims and alleged perpetrators, issue narrative reports with reparation recommendations, and build a database with a registry and sectoral mapping of victims. A special office inside the Commission does the work, headed by a Director at Salary Grade 28 or above with a named minimum staff — 5 legal officers, 5 researchers, 5 investigators, 5 administrative staff, a security officer and a data officer.

Section 7 requires a public narrative report within 3 years. Section 8 then dissolves the office: 2 months after publication it transfers its documents and becomes functus officio.

The declaration grounds itself in the Constitution's adoption of international law and its guarantee of human rights, in the ICCPR and ICESCR, and in the March 2015 report of the interim Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission.

Its own argument is about sequence. Acknowledgement comes first: the Bangsamoro Government is obliged to acknowledge the violations committed during the decades of conflict, including those by State actors and State-affiliated groups, through a systematic and permanent mechanism of documentation. Recognition of individual victims follows, so that they or their families can benefit from social protection and the monetary and non-monetary reparations in the transitional justice packages. And the whole exercise is to form part of the construction of the Bangsamoro Historical Memory — the same phrase Bill No. 25 uses to name one of its sub-commissions.

Naming the cases is what makes this bill different from every other transitional justice measure in the registry, including the act that passed. BAA 89 documents violations from the American period onward and traces land dispossession to 1898, which is a wider mandate and a vaguer one. This bill picks 10 events and 5 displacement episodes and says: start here. A commission given 51 years of history and no priorities produces a literature review; one given the Malisbong massacre and the Ilaga campaign produces findings that a family can point to.

The naming goes further than most statutes would. Listing the Ilaga, the Blackshirts and the Barracudas in a definition, and identifying killings by armed auxiliaries employed by a named private construction company between 1986 and 1990, puts specific allegations against specific actors into the text of a proposed law. That is a deliberate choice about the function of legislation — the list itself is a form of acknowledgement, and it survives whether or not the Commission ever reports.

The asymmetry in the mandate is the thing to state plainly, because the bill does not. It documents violations by State actors and State-affiliated armed groups. Violations by the Moro fronts are outside its scope. There is a coherent rationale — this is a regional government legislating about what was done to the people it now governs, and the fronts' conduct was addressed through the peace process — and it is also the reason the resulting record will be a partial one. The companion Bill No. 22 shows the author was not unaware of the question: it disqualifies from a veteran's pension anyone found guilty by final judgment of a gross human rights violation while in the service.

The funding clause is where the bill is weakest, and it is a familiar weakness in this registry. A 3-year investigation of 10 mass-casualty events, with 18 statutory staff, is to come out of the Human Rights Commission's regular budget. The sunset clause compounds the risk: the office dissolves 2 months after publishing, which is clean institutional design and leaves no one to act on the findings, since the reparations it recommends are the business of the other bills in this package — none of which has passed either.

MP Alamia filed 9 bills on 19 September 2022, the first filing day of the Second Parliament, and 5 of them are a transitional justice programme rather than 5 separate measures. Bill No. 20 protects internally displaced persons; Bill No. 21 documents the human rights violations of the conflict and recognises its victims; Bill No. 22 pensions the ageing combatants; Bill No. 23 compensates the orphans of war; and Bill No. 25 creates the commission to run the whole thing. Only Bill 25 became law, as BAA 89 in January 2026 after sitting at First Reading for 2 years and 9 months. The other 4 are still at Committee Stage. The region has the commission and none of the 4 programmes it was built to coordinate.