Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Rules
Committee Report No. 64 RE: Bill No. 267 Adopted
Deferred Second Reading (Consideration and Deliberation Stage)
Deferred Second Reading (Period of Amendments)
Approved on 2nd Reading
Approved on 3rd & Final Reading
BAA No. 58Now
Parliament Bill No. 267
ApprovedCabinet measureAn Act Providing for the Creation of Parliamentary Districts in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
Filed
First Reading
Referred to the Committee on Rules
Committee Report No. 64 RE: Bill No. 267 Adopted
Deferred Second Reading (Consideration and Deliberation Stage)
Deferred Second Reading (Period of Amendments)
Approved on 2nd Reading
Approved on 3rd & Final Reading
BAA No. 58Now
Passed third reading. This measure has cleared Parliament.
What this measure does
This is the map. It apportions the region into 32 single-member parliamentary districts — the 40% of the Parliament that is elected by district rather than by party list or reserved seat — and it does so by printing every municipality and barangay with its population beside it.
The criteria are in Section 3 and they are short: districts are apportioned among the provinces, cities, municipalities and geographical areas on the basis of population and geographical area; each is to comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact and adjacent territory; and each is to have a population of at least 100,000. The regional population is given as 4,944,800, from the 2020 Census.
The allocation runs: Lanao del Sur 8 districts for 1,195,518 people; Sulu 7 for 1,000,108; Maguindanao del Norte 4 for 618,421; Maguindanao del Sur 4 for 723,758; Basilan 3 for 426,207; Tawi-Tawi 3 for 440,276; Cotabato City 2 for 325,079; and the Special Geographic Areas 1 district for 215,433.
Cotabato City is districted barangay by barangay rather than as a whole, which is why the schedule runs to Rosary Heights XIII and Tamontaka V. The Special Geographic Areas district covers all 8 of its municipalities together.
The bill appropriates nothing. It draws lines.
Why it was proposed
Section 2 states the policy in a single sentence: the Parliament shall ensure the equitable representation of the inhabitants of the region in the apportionment of parliamentary districts.
The practical necessity is that the Bangsamoro Electoral Code, enacted 9 months earlier, provides that 40% of an 80-member Parliament is elected from districts — and no districts existed. Without this map there is no district election to hold. It is the second half of a 2-part job, and the part that decides where political power actually sits.
Who it affects
- Every voter in the region, whose district representative is determined by which line they fall on.
- The Special Geographic Areas — the 63 barangays from North Cotabato, organised into 8 municipalities — which receive a single district for 215,433 people.
- Cotabato City, districted at barangay level into 2 seats.
- Lanao del Sur and Sulu, which between them hold 15 of the 32 districts.
- Candidates for district seats, who must be registered voters resident in their district for at least a year under the Electoral Code.
Who would implement it
- The Act is self-executing as to the boundaries; the Bangsamoro Electoral Office and COMELEC conduct the elections held within them under the Bangsamoro Electoral Code
Funding
No appropriation. No appropriation. The bill draws boundaries and creates no office.
What changes if it becomes law
- The region acquires 32 named parliamentary districts where it had none.
- The 40% district share of an 80-member Parliament becomes capable of being elected.
- Cotabato City is divided into 2 districts at barangay level.
- The Special Geographic Areas become a single lone district.
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
Publishing the population beside every unit is the most important editorial decision in this bill, because it lets anyone check the apportionment against the rule the bill itself sets. Do that, and 1 line stands out.
The Special Geographic Areas hold 215,433 people and receive 1 district. Across the rest of the region the districts average roughly 148,000 — Basilan about 142,000 a seat, Sulu about 143,000, Tawi-Tawi about 147,000, Lanao del Sur about 149,000, Maguindanao del Norte about 155,000, Cotabato City about 163,000, Maguindanao del Sur about 181,000. A voter in the Special Geographic Areas therefore carries roughly two-thirds the weight of a voter in Basilan or Sulu, and the area is the most under-represented unit on the map by a clear margin.
That is not an oversight so much as a consequence of the floor. With a minimum of 100,000 per district, 215,433 cannot be split into 2 without both falling to about 108,000 — legal, but barely — and the bill does not take that option. The 63 barangays of the Special Geographic Areas voted to leave North Cotabato and join the Bangsamoro in 2019, and they are the newest constituent part of the region; they are also the part whose representation the arithmetic squeezes hardest.
The second thing to notice is what districting Cotabato City barangay by barangay implies. Every other unit is apportioned by municipality. The city is cut through the middle of its own neighborhoods, which is the one place in this map where the drawing of a line is a choice about which populations sit together rather than an application of existing boundaries. The bill gives no account of how those 2 groupings were arrived at.
A drafting note for anyone reading the filed copy: there is no Section 4. The numbering runs 3, then 5, and the apportionment table follows immediately — so the criteria and the districts they produce are separated by a section that does not exist.
Sources