An Act Reorganizing the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) by Splitting It into Four (4) Agencies, Thereby Creating the Ministry of Basic Education (Mobe), the Bangsamoro-Commission on Higher Education and Development (B-CHED), the Bangsamoro-Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (B-TESDA), and the Bangsamoro Madaris Education Office (Bmeo), Amending for This Purpose Title Ii, Book Vi, Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 13 or an Act Providing for the Bangsamoro Administrative Code, and the Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 18 or an Act Providing for the Establishment, Management, and Support of a Complete and Integrated System of Quality Education in the Bangsamoro, Appropriating Funds Thereof, and for Other Purposes

This splits the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education into 4 agencies and, in the course of doing so, re-enacts the region's education law around them. Sixty-nine pages, 52 footnotes, and amendments to both the Administrative Code and BAA 18, the education act.

The 4 successors are the Ministry of Basic Education headed by a Minister; the Bangsamoro Commission on Higher Education and Development headed by a Chairperson; the Bangsamoro Technical Education and Skills Development Authority; and the Bangsamoro Madaris Education Office, the last 2 each headed by an Executive Director. Section 10 tells them to design and maintain "a lean and mean organization".

Around that split the bill rewrites the system. It sets out the learning systems and levels of education, free and compulsory basic education, and 2 formal systems in basic education. Section 18 addresses the madaris educational system and Islamic and Arabic studies. Section 19 directs Parliament to create a tribal university system. Section 20 covers physical education, sports development and the Bangsamoro Sports Commission. Later chapters reach student rights — including free legal service and channels of communication with academic and administrative authorities — school safety measures such as closed-circuit installation, and encouragement for barangays to appropriate funds for education in their own budgets.

On accountability the bill adds 3 provisions to the split: each of the 4 agencies gets its own separate budget item in the annual appropriations act; Section 12 requires a mandatory review after 10 years; and Section 13 states that Parliament shall exercise oversight to see that the Act is carried out in accordance with its purpose. Affected officials and employees are to be compensated under existing laws.

Section 3 states the purpose unusually directly, and names its source: the reorganisation is "in accordance with the National Government Rightsizing Program (NGRP) that is primarily lobbied by President Marcos", alongside the region's own mandate to build an education framework responsive to Bangsamoro needs.

The explanatory note then makes the administrative case. MBHTE is already divided into bureaus for the different levels of education, but its organizational structure "can use some improvement": it would be more efficient if each level were lodged with independent but linked agencies, which would unclog transactions and distribute the management of the levels rather than concentrating them.

Naming President Marcos in the purpose clause is the most unusual sentence in this bill, and it cuts against the bill's own logic. A regional statute justifying itself by a national rightsizing programme "primarily lobbied" by the sitting president is an odd foundation for a measure passed under an Organic Law that gives the region authority to organise its own bureaucracy — and rightsizing normally means fewer agencies, where this bill turns 1 ministry into four. The administrative case in the explanatory note stands on its own; the citation to national policy adds nothing and dates the bill to a particular national administration.

The separate budget item per agency is the provision most likely to determine whether the split works. Inside 1 ministry, madaris education and technical education compete for attention against basic education, which has the enrolment and the political weight; 4 named lines in the appropriations act make each one a number the finance ministry and Parliament have to look at. That is the mechanism by which a reorganisation becomes more than a change of letterhead, and it is the same instinct as the parliamentary oversight clause.

What the bill does not resolve is coordination. Four agencies with 4 heads — a Minister, a Chairperson and 2 Executive Directors — are of different institutional rank, and nothing in the text says who convenes them or how a dispute between basic and higher education is settled. Section 8 requires that education policies be "harmonized across sectors and levels", which states the requirement without naming the body that does it. Splitting a ministry creates the coordination problem the ministry existed to solve, and this bill hands it to implementing rules approved by the Office of the Chief Minister.

A note on reading the filed copy: the section numbering restarts within each book, so the bill contains several provisions numbered Section 9 and Section 10 meaning entirely different things. The splitting clause is Section 9 of Chapter 2; the appropriation is Section 10 of the Final Provisions.

MP Ampatuan filed 2 reorganisation bills together in September 2022 with the same 6 co-authors: this one and its companion. Bill No. 47 splits the education ministry into 4 agencies; Bill No. 48 splits the environment ministry into two. Read alongside MP Mawallil's 3 bills breaking up the agriculture ministry, filed in the same month, the First Regular Session opened with 5 measures from 2 members proposing to restructure 3 of the region's largest ministries into nine. None of the 5 has moved past Committee Stage.