An Act to Recognize, Develop and Protect the Indigenous Peoples in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Strengthening the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Appropriating Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes

This is the cabinet's indigenous peoples bill, filed in January 2024 and enacted 11 months later as BAA 64. Nineteen chapters and just over 100 sections, covering ancestral domain, self-governance, mandatory representation, the tribal justice system, social justice, women and children, indigenous knowledge, the ministry, delineation and titling, resource shares, consent, enforcement, penalties and money.

Its declaration of policy does 3 things that are not ordinary. It adopts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as part of the region's policy framework. It recognises the Moro-IP kinship as a living tradition, both peoples tracing common ancestry from Mamalu and Tabunaway. And it declares the entire Bangsamoro territory the shared ancestral domain of all native inhabitants, by common ancestry and pre-colonial history. It closes by recognising indigenous peoples as victims of historical injustice through colonization, armed conflict and dispossession.

The gate is Section 83. No ministry or government agency may issue, renew or grant a concession, license or lease, enter a production-sharing agreement or carry out any project without prior certification from the indigenous peoples' ministry that the area does not overlap an ancestral domain. That certification issues only after a field investigation, only with the community's free, prior and informed consent, and not at all while a claim to a Fusaka Ingëd title is pending. Communities may stop or suspend any project that has not satisfied the consent guidelines, and interfering in the consent process is itself an offense.

On money from the ground, the bill sets floors rather than leaving it to negotiation: an equitable share of revenue from natural resources in the domain, on a mutually agreed ratio but in no case less than 10%, paid directly by the Bangsamoro Government to the communities; and where an outsider is admitted to develop resources — for a term not exceeding 25 years, renewable once — a royalty of not less than 1% of gross income. The same 1% floor applies to aquatic resources.

On governance, indigenous political structures are recognised by name — Council of Elders, Council of Timuays, Timuay Justice and Governance, Gempa te Kalindaan ne Kamal, Kena Menuwa, Alimbubungan — and given power to resolve conflicts, confer tribal titles and solemnize marriages. Every local government unit containing ancestral domain or land must seat an indigenous mandatory representative selected by the community's own structures; interference by the local chief executive or the council is unlawful, and recognising the representative is "mandatory and ministerial", with refusal a ground for discipline. Where a population is at least 5% indigenous, a Deputy Governor or Deputy Mayor for indigenous peoples must be appointed.

Customary law governs first. Property, claims, ownership, hereditary succession and land disputes are decided under the customary law of the place where the dispute arose, and any doubt or ambiguity in applying or interpreting the law is resolved in favor of indigenous peoples.

Section 2 grounds the bill in the Organic Law's own mandate: to protect, promote and preserve the collective rights of indigenous peoples in the region, recognise and develop their ancestral domain, strengthen their indigenous political structure and political participation, and protect minority indigenous cultural communities from marginalization and discrimination.

Section 100 says the rest without arguing it. Within 90 days, pending ancestral domain applications still being processed by the national commission — the Teduray Lambangian Ancestral Domain Claim is named — are to be turned over to the regional ministry. A claim that has been in the national system for years is the concrete thing this bill is built to move.

The penalties chapter shows what kind of law this is trying to be. Section 95 says that a person who violates the Act shall be punished "in accordance with the customary laws of the ICCs/IPs concerned" — with 2 limits written straight into the sentence: no cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment, and no death penalty or excessive fines. Only as an alternative, and at the community's option, does the statutory scale apply: 9 months to 12 years, or ₱100,000 to ₱500,000, or both, plus damages. Putting customary law first in a penal provision and then bounding it with the guarantees a constitution would impose is a careful piece of drafting, and it is the clearest statement in the bill of how the 2 legal orders are meant to fit.

The declaration that the entire Bangsamoro territory is the shared ancestral domain of all native inhabitants is the boldest sentence in the document and also the least operative. It sits in the policy chapter, not in the chapter on domains, and nothing later turns on it — titling, delineation and consent all run on specific claims to specific ground. What it does is political: it forecloses the argument that recognising indigenous domains carves something out of the Bangsamoro, by asserting that both peoples' claims rest on the same pre-colonial foundation and the same pair of brothers.

One change between filing and enactment is worth naming because it enlarges the bill's reach. Section 83 here binds "All Ministries and other governmental agencies"; the enacted Section 86 extends the same prohibition to "other national governmental agencies". A regional statute telling national agencies what they may not license is an assertion the text does not defend, and it is the provision most likely to be tested when it collides with a national permit.

The money moved the other way. As filed, the bill carries 2 appropriations of ₱200 million — one for the Ancestral Domain Fund and one, expressly separate, for implementing everything else. The enacted act keeps the ₱200 million domain fund and leaves the rest to the ministry's ordinary budget line. Since the fund is reserved for compensation, redemption, delineation and titling, what was dropped is the money for the machinery that does the delineating — which is to say, half the bill's own answer to why its predecessor statute never delivered.

On speed: filed in January 2024, enacted in December 2024. Set against the transitional justice bill, which sat at First Reading for 2 years and 9 months, the difference is not subject matter but sponsorship. This one is a bill of the Government of the Day.