An Act Creating a Bangsamoro Veteran Mujahideen/ Mujahidat Affairs Office, Defining Its Basic Organizational Structure, Providing Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes

This creates a Bangsamoro Veteran Mujahideen Affairs Office and pays a monthly allowance to ageing fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front.

A Veteran Mujahideen is defined precisely: a member of the MILF or MNLF who actually rendered revolutionary services in the protracted wars for self-determination for at least 20 years between 1969 and 2014, and who is at least 55 years old when the Act takes effect. The benefit goes to the underprivileged among them — those with no opportunity for employment because of old age, lack of the required education, or other requirements for employment.

What distinguishes this version is that it prices service by role. Revolutionary service is sorted into 4 categories, each with its own monthly allowance. Category A, combatants who had actual engagement in military combat, receives ₱10,000. Category B, first aiders who provided medical support during combat, ₱8,000. Category C, the support group who provided food and non-food supplies to combatants, ₱6,000. Category D, the peace mechanism — those who contributed to the peace process through official platforms or back-door negotiations — ₱5,000.

Beyond the cash: free medical assistance at any health facility supervised by the regional health ministry, and exemption from taxes, fees and other charges imposed by the Bangsamoro Government. On a veteran's death, the monthly allowance continues to the spouse and children for 5 years.

The office sits inside the Ministry of Public Order and Safety as a component division, headed by a Director II, with 3 divisions — processing and validation, benefit availment, and monitoring and evaluation. And Section 13 says where the names come from: the ministry coordinates with the Central Committee of the MILF and of the MNLF for the list of qualified and validated beneficiaries.

The declaration of policy is general — the Bangsamoro Government protects the interests of its people, ensures basic necessities and equal opportunities, and puts in place economic mechanisms tailored to their needs. Section 3 is more specific: the purpose is to assist veterans who are underprivileged and have no opportunity for employment because of their old age, lack of education, or other employment requirements.

The unstated logic is in the exclusion. Section 10 withholds the benefits from veterans who receive benefits and privileges under the decommissioning process as part of normalization. The peace agreement provides for combatants who are formally decommissioned; this bill is for the ones who are not in that process and have nothing — men and women who spent 20 years or more in an armed movement and reached their mid-50s without a pension, a qualification or a job.

The 4 categories are the most revealing thing in this bill, and Parliament removed them. As filed, a combatant receives ₱10,000 a month and someone who worked on back-door negotiations receives ₱5,000 — the state putting a price on kinds of contribution to an armed struggle, with fighting at the top and peacemaking at the bottom. BAA 57 pays everyone ₱7,000. Whatever was said in committee is not published, but the decision to flatten the scale is the single largest change the measure underwent, and it declines to rank the ways people served.

The eligibility test was rebuilt in the same pass. This bill turns on age — 55 — and on a soft description of being underprivileged. The act turns on being a senior citizen or permanently disabled and on an income below ₱250,000 a year. Replacing a description with a means test makes the benefit administrable and also narrows it: a 56-year-old in reasonable health earning above the threshold qualifies here and not there.

The act took something away as well. This version continues the allowance to a spouse and children for 5 years after the veteran dies; BAA 57 makes the pension lifetime and non-transferrable, ending at death. For a benefit aimed at households with no other income, that is the provision a family would feel.

And there is the sentence in Section 13 that no summary of this measure should skip. The list of qualified beneficiaries is to be assembled in coordination with the Central Committee of the MILF and of the MNLF. Determining who fought, for how long, in a war with no personnel files means asking the organisations that fought it — which is administratively unavoidable and constitutionally striking, since it gives 2 non-state bodies a hand in deciding who receives public money.

One drafting slip in the filed copy: Section 7 puts a Director II at the head of the office, while Section 8 provides for the appointment of an "Executive Director I" with a 3-year term under the interim Chief Minister and a non-renewable 6-year term thereafter. The 2 sections do not name the same post.