An Act Providing for the Bangsamoro Local Governance Code

This is the cabinet's Local Governance Code: 554 sections across 4 books and 221 pages, replacing the ARMM's local government code and governing every province, city, municipality and barangay in the region. It was enacted as BAA 49 with 605 sections.

The policy in Section 2 is decentralization by stages — local government units to be given more powers, authority, responsibilities and resources "in a gradual and systematic approach", under the principles of moral governance.

Section 40 lists who may not run for local office, and paragraph (g) is the provision this Code will be remembered for. Anyone related within the 2nd civil degree of consanguinity or affinity to an incumbent local official who is running for an elective position is disqualified from standing for any provincial position in the same province, any city position in the same city, any municipal position in the same municipality, or any barangay position in the same barangay. The bill's own footnote calls it what it is: "Anti-dynasty proposed provision."

Two neighbouring paragraphs close the obvious ways around it. Paragraph (h) disqualifies local officials elected outside the region who seek election inside it at the next local elections — footnoted as preventing circumvention of the rules on term limits. Paragraph (i) disqualifies an incumbent seeking an office lower than the one they hold.

On devolution, Section 547 provides that 7 years after the Code takes effect, the Committee shall assess the capacity of local government units and issue guidelines for the devolution process, after which ministries reorganize to avoid overlapping functions while respecting the security of tenure of affected personnel.

And on transparency, Section 530 penalises a local treasurer or chief accountant who fails to post the itemized monthly collections and disbursements — within 10 days of month end, for at least 2 consecutive weeks, at the main office, the plaza and the main street, and in a newspaper — with a fine not exceeding ₱5,000, or suspension, or imprisonment up to 1 year. Section 528(d) requires ordinances to be published in translation into local dialects.

The Code exists because the region was running local government on Republic Act No. 7160 and the ARMM's own code, neither written for a parliamentary regional government with the powers the Organic Law confers. Section 2 frames the replacement as enabling territorial and political subdivisions to attain full development as self-reliant communities and effective partners in Bangsamoro development.

The filed copy also argues with itself in public. It carries about 100 numbered footnotes explaining what each departure is for — flagging the anti-dynasty clause as a proposal, explaining that paragraph (h) prevents circumvention of term limits, and recording at Section 528 that translation into local dialects was "included as suggested during the consultation because constituents could not understand" the ordinances otherwise. Filed bills in this registry do not normally show their working; this one does.

The anti-dynasty clause was the cabinet's, and the delay was Parliament's. That is the single most important thing this filed copy establishes. Section 40(g) is here in the bill as introduced, footnoted as an anti-dynasty provision, and Section 554 — the effectivity clause — says the Code takes effect immediately on publication. Nothing in the 554 sections defers it. The enacted BAA 49 put it off to the May 2028 elections, which meant the 2025 local elections ran on the old rules and the officials who passed the Code never had to stand under it. The deferral is not in the document the Government of the Day filed.

The devolution timetable moved the other way, and sharply. This bill has the committee assess local government capacity 7 years after the Code takes effect, with the transfer of services following from that assessment. The enacted act requires ministries to devolve within 5 years, with the Devolution Committee given 6 months to assess capacity and 3 more to produce a plan. A 7-year wait before anyone even looks became a 9-month deadline to look and a 5-year deadline to finish. Parliament was markedly more impatient about devolution than the cabinet, and markedly more patient about dynasties.

The transparency penalty tells the same story in miniature. Failing to publish the monthly collections and disbursements carries a fine of not more than ₱5,000 here; in the act it is a fine of ₱40,000 to ₱1,200,000. A ceiling became a floor 8 times higher, and the maximum rose by a factor of 240. Parliament also added the Bangsamoro Register of Ordinances — digital, online and public — and the onboarding and continuing training requirement for newly elected officials, with disqualification for those who deliberately skip it. None of those are in the filed copy.

What the bill contributed on its own account is the translation requirement, and the footnote attached to it is the most human sentence in 221 pages: translation into local dialects was included "as suggested during the consultation because constituents could not understand" the ordinances. A Code that regulates 605 sections' worth of local government stands or falls on whether the people it governs can read the rules, and that provision came out of a room where someone said so.

One limit is identical in both documents and worth naming. The disqualification reaches only relatives of an incumbent running in the *same* election in the *same* local government unit, to the 2nd civil degree. A family holding a governorship and a mayoralty in different municipalities is untouched; so is a cousin, a nephew, or an in-law past the second degree; so is a relative who waits until the incumbent stands down. The bill closes the 2 doors its own footnotes identify — the neighbouring jurisdiction and the step down to a lower office — which shows the drafters were thinking about specific manoeuvres rather than stating a principle. It also shows which manoeuvres they left open.