Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Parliament Bill No. 431
In forceAn Act Expanding the Scope of Authority and Services of Special Geographic Area Development Authority Amending Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 13, Otherwise Known as the “Bangsamoro Administrative Code” and Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 49 Otherwise Known as “Bangsamoro Local Governance Code”, Providing Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes
A single authority, supervised directly by the Chief Minister, now plans and oversees area-wide services across the eight SGA municipalities — flood control, drainage, land use, shelter, health and sanitation, pollution control, and disaster response — with its own board, staff and guaranteed funding. Town governments keep their autonomy over purely local matters, and SGADA may only deliver basic services in a municipality with that municipality's consent.
Filed
First Reading
Second Reading — Committee
Second Reading — Plenary
Third Reading
Approved
EnactedNow
Signed into law and operative unless later amended or repealed.
What this measure does
This takes the eight municipalities of the Special Geographic Area — Kadayangan, Kapalawan, Ligawasan, Malidegao, Nabalawag, Old Kaabakan, Pahamuddin and Tugunan — and treats them as one development and administrative area rather than eight separate towns, under the direct supervision of the Chief Minister. The body that runs it, the Special Geographic Area Development Authority, already existed in interim form under the Bangsamoro Administrative Code; this gives it a governing board, a staff structure, defined powers, and money of its own.
The logic of the thing is in its definition of "SGA-wide services": services whose impact crosses town boundaries, or that cost so much no single municipality could provide them. Five are named — development planning; flood control and sewerage; rural, zoning and land use planning and shelter; health and sanitation, environmental protection and pollution control; and public safety, including disaster preparedness and relief for floods, fires and earthquakes. A sixth is open-ended: anything else the Chief Minister may delegate pursuant to a law.
The money is the part that carries furthest. Section 10 authorises ₱500 million for initial operation, then hands the Authority a fixed 5 percent of all revenue the Bangsamoro Government collects, every year, on top of whatever the annual appropriations act gives it. It may also levy fines and charge fees for services it renders.
Why it was proposed
The bill's own policy section makes the argument: the Special Geographic Area needs to be treated as a special development and administrative area, and certain basic services affecting it are more efficiently planned, supervised and coordinated area-wide than town by town. These are the eight municipalities constituted after the 2019 plebiscite in which 63 barangays of North Cotabato voted to join the Bangsamoro — new units, sharing a marshland basin, with problems that stop at no boundary. An interim Authority was already operating; this puts it on a permanent footing and funds it.
Who it affects
- Residents of the eight SGA municipalities, for whom flood control, drainage, land use, shelter, health and sanitation, and disaster response become one authority's responsibility rather than eight.
- The mayors and councils of those municipalities, whose autonomy over purely local matters is expressly preserved twice in the text, and whose consent SGADA needs before it delivers basic services in their town — but whose development plans must now fit SGADA's master plan.
- Employees of the interim SGADA, who keep their duties, salaries and allowances until formally notified of a change, and who are owed 1¼ month's salary for every year of service if displaced.
- Bangsamoro ministries, offices and agencies, whose strategic plans for the area are framed by SGADA's master plan and whose plans route through the planning authority for integration.
- Every Bangsamoro taxpayer, because the 5 percent annual share is drawn from region-wide revenue while the services are delivered in eight municipalities.
Who would implement it
- Special Geographic Area Development Authority (SGADA), under the direct supervision of the Chief Minister
- The Special Geographic Area Board — the SGADA Chairperson, the Minister of the Interior and Local Government, the Minister of Finance and Budget and Management, the Bangsamoro Director General of BPDA, and the President of the SGA League of Mayors
- An Executive Director and three Deputy Executive Directors for finance and administration, planning, and operations, all appointed by the Chief Minister
- The eight component local government units, which carry out much of the implementation
- Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority, which integrates SGADA's plans into the Bangsamoro Development Plan
- Ministry of Finance, and Budget and Management, and the Commission on Audit, over the transfer of the interim body's assets and liabilities
Funding
Carries an appropriation. ₱500,000,000 authorised for initial operation, with annual expenditures and capital outlays thereafter provided in the General Appropriations Act. On top of that the Authority takes a fixed 5 percent annually of all revenue collection of the Bangsamoro Government, and is empowered to levy fines and impose fees and charges for services rendered. The 5 percent share is the unusual term: it is a standing claim on regional revenue rather than a sum voted each year, and the text sets no ceiling and no expiry on it.
What changes if it becomes law
- The eight SGA municipalities become a single special development and administrative area under the Chief Minister's direct supervision.
- The interim Authority becomes a permanent one with a governing board, an Executive Director, three deputies and a staffing pattern.
- Area-wide flood control, land use, shelter, health and sanitation, pollution control and disaster response acquire one accountable office.
- SGADA's master plan becomes the framework that both Bangsamoro ministry plans and the eight LGU development plans must fit.
- The Authority gains ₱500 million to start and a standing 5 percent of annual Bangsamoro revenue thereafter.
- The Authority may contract, enter memoranda of agreement, and deal directly with foreign assistance agencies for grants and financing.
- Local autonomy over purely local matters is preserved in terms, and SGADA needs an LGU's consent before delivering basic services there.
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
Three things are worth watching, and none of them is the stated purpose.
The first is the 5 percent. Almost every other appropriation in the registry is a sum voted for a purpose; this is a permanent slice of regional revenue assigned to one authority serving eight of the region's municipalities, with no ceiling and no sunset in the filed text. Whether that is proportionate is a political question, but it is the provision that will still be doing work in 10 years.
The second is who wrote it. Parliament's own member profile records the principal author, MP Butch P. Malang, as Administrator of the Special Geographic Area and Development Authority since 2022 — the body this bill expands, staffs and funds. The rulebook requires a member to take no part in proceedings on a measure where they hold a conflict of interest or stand to gain or lose financially. Whether that rule was engaged here is not something this registry can determine, and nothing in the published record suggests it was raised; the fact is stated because a reader weighing the bill deserves to know it.
The third is the paperwork. Parliament's index carries this enactment twice — as Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 93 and again as No. 94, same title, same ratification date of 16 July 2026, both tracing back to Bill 431. The bill's own history line on the index closes with 'BAA No. 93', which points to 93 as the operative number and 94 as an indexing artefact. Anyone citing it should quote the date and the title as well as a number.
There is a fourth thing, and it is the reason this reading is of the bill rather than the law. Parliament has not published the signed text of this enactment. Its act pages carry no attachment, and the same is true of the two other acts ratified alongside it (BAA 92 and 94) — the three most recent acts on the index are all text-less as of this capture. So the filed bill is currently the only readable version of this law.
One drafting note on top of that: the filed copy runs Section 8 straight into Section 10. There is no Section 9.
How to take part
The measure's page on parliament.bangsamoro.gov.ph carries the filed PDF and the legislative history, and the enacted law is Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 94. SGADA is required by law to consult LGUs, people's organisations, NGOs and the private sector, so those consultations are the practical way in.
Sources