DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 19 November) – If the October 13, 2025 elections had pushed through, the term of office of the first elected Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) would have been two years and eight months until June 30, 2028 or four months short of the three-year term of office.
The truncated term is based on RA 12123, which reset the 1st Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE) from May 12, 2025 to October 13, 2025. The law provides that “the term of office of the officials first elected shall commence at noon of the 30th day of October next following their election” and that the next election “shall be held and synchronized with the 2028 national elections and every three years thereafter.”
The longer the delay in the conduct of the elections after the aborted October 13, 2025 polls, the shorter the term of office will be until 2028, raising the possibility of still holding the elections in 2026 and truncating the three-year term until June 30, 2028, or extending the term of the first MPs elected in 2026 until June 30, 2031.
Truncating or extending the term of office, however, could pose problems as the Constitution and the Bangsamoro Organic Law provide for a three-year term of office for the MPs and the law provides for synchronized local and national elections.
The other option is to hold the elections in 2028 but this means extending the transition period to a total of nine years and four months from February 2019 to June 30, 2028 – more than thrice the original intent to transition in three years – February 2019 to June 30, 2022.
If the elections were held on March 31, 2026 and the elected leaders assume their posts on April 30, that would be a term of only two years and two months until June 30, 2028.
The first BPE has been postponed thrice: from May 9, 2022 to May 12, 2025; from May 12, 2025 to October 13, 2025. The postponement from October 13, 2025 to a still to be determined date is the third.
Under Section 11 of Article VII of the Organic Law for the BARMM, the term of office of the Members of Parliament shall be three years, “provided that no member shall serve for more than three consecutive terms.”
Under RA 7166, national and local elections are to be synchronized. The next synchronized elections are in May 2028 and May 2031.
Until 2028
Lawyer Ona Caritos, Executive Director of Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE), told MindaNews that the term of office of those who will be elected next year “will be up to 2028 only.”
“This is the same case when it comes to the postponement of the Barangay and SK (Sangguniang Kabataan) elections,” she added.
RA 11935 moved the Dec 5, 2022 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) to Oct 30, 2023. The Supreme Court struck down the law but allowed the Oct 2023 polls to proceed and set the next election for December 2025. It also ruled that those elected on Oct 30, 2023 will serve only until December 31, 2025 or only two years and two months out of the supposed three-year term of barangay and SK officials.
In August 2025, RA 12232 was passed, rescheduling the December 1, 2025 election to November 2026 and setting the term of office of barangay officials and members of the Sangguniang Kabataan to four years instead of three.
The Supreme Court this month denied the petitions questioning the constitutionality of the law saying the Constitution grants Congress the authority to set the term duration of barangay officials.
“These officials are not bound by the general three-year term limit that applies to other elective local officials. This legislative power is not merely permissive; it makes Congress the sole body empowered to define the term of office of barangay officials,” the Supreme Court said.
The term of office of the Member of Parliament in the BARMM is three years, in accordance with the Constitution and the Organic Law.
It is only Congress that can set the date of elections. The October 13, 2025 election did not push through because the laws apportioning the 32 parliamentary districts were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a decision dated September 30, 2025.
The Supreme Court declared BAA 58 and 77 unconstitutional, a decision that it said was “immediately executory,” and directed the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the governing body of the BARMM during the transition period, to “immediately undertake by October 30, 2025 at the latest” the passage of a new law for the 32 parliamentary district seats “in strict compliance with the priorities and requirements provided to the Bangsamoro Organic Law, as well as the criteria laid down in this decision.”
It also urged Congress to “promptly enact a law that would reschedule the BARMM Parliamentary Elections … as much as practicable, not later than March 31, 2026.”
Extended transition
No bill resetting the October 13 elections has been filed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both houses of Congress are awaiting the passage of the BTA’s new districting law.
Five districting bills have been filed but the BTA cannot pass a new law by November 30, 2025 with only five session days left from November 20 until month’s end, and the Parliament busy focusing on the 2026 budget. (read other story)
Without a law passed by November 30, there cannot be an election “not later than March 31, 2026.”
The election in the BARMM marks the end of the transition period that was supposed to be for three years only — from February 2019 to June 30, 2022. This was extended to another three years, until June 30, 2025 and extended again supposedly until October 30, 2025 if the elections were held on October 13.
The BTA is mandated to pass during the transition period priority codes listed in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the peace agreement signed by the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2014, and in Republic Act 11054 or the Organic Law for the BARMM. The BTA has yet to pass the Bangsamoro Revenue Code.
Normalization – which includes the decommissioning of the MILF’s combatants and weapons, and camp transformation, among others – has yet to be completed. But the MILF in July this year unilaterally suspended the decommissioning of combatants and weapons until there is “substantial compliance” by the national government in the other tracks of normalization, such as the provision of socio-economic package to the decommissioned combatants.
A total of 40,000 combatants and 7,200 weapons are to be decommissioned, and as of the third phase that ended on July 4, 2024, the decommissioned combatants number 26,145 (65.4%) and decommissioned weapons at 4,625 (64.2%).
Only 5% or 1,286 out of 26,145 decommissioned combatants are from the six MILF camps previously acknowledged by the national government.
Several issues had earlier been raised about holding elections with 13,855 combatants and 2,575 weapons still awaiting decommissioning.
Holdover
Since October 30, the Members of Parliament appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos have been on holdover status and the transition period extended anew.
When the elections will be, that date will be beyond March 31, 2026. But this early, questions are being raised on what could be a truncated term until 2028 if elections were held in 2026.
Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, chair of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, told MindaNews that BARMM MPs raised the issue of reckoning the three-year term during their visit to the House of Representatives in Quezon City earlier this month.
“The question is whether someone will file a petition na naman sa korte citing the three-year constitutional provision for elected officials. But if elections were held in 2026, Alonto said, “definitely (we) cannot hold the (next) BARMM elections in 2029 kasi that’s a violation of the synchronization law.
Bangsamoro Deputy Speaker Ishak Mastura told MindaNews that if Congress and Malacanang decide on an election in 2026, “then the best option is to make the term of the first elected Members of Parliament five years (2026 to 2031) to avoid issues regarding cutting or shortening the regular term of three years of MPs and issues of synchronization in the elections.”
“Otherwise,” Mastura added, “Congress can set the first BARMM Parliamentary Elections during the regular NLE (national and local elections) in 2028.”
He said the Commission on Elections “needs a law setting the first elections and in that law, there must be a provision to allow refiling of candidacies including political parties. The Comelec also needs a new budget and they will have to rebid the automated counting machines because it is a separate elections from the NLE 2025. If it is synchronized with 2028, then of course Comelec will have less logistical problems.”
The next election Comelec is preparing for is the November 2026 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE). If the BARMM elections were to be held along with the 1st Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections, that will leave the elected Members of Parliament a term of only 20 months or one year and eight months until June 30, 2028 or, if the term of the first elected is extended, until June 30, 2031 or four years and seven months.
Ratified after the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship in1986, the 1987 Constitution under its Transitory Provisions, provided that members of Congress and local officials voted upon in the first elections under the new Constitution were to serve until noon of June 30, 1992, to allow for synchronized elections by 1992.
The first elected representatives elected in 1987 served for five years instead of three. The first elected local officials in 1988 served four instead of three.
Mastura said that since this is the first elected Bangsamoro Parliament, “Congress will determine the date of elections as long as the next date of elections is synchronized. The power of Congress to postpone elections necessarily carries the power to determine the term at least with regard to the first elections in the BARMM.”
By analogy, he noted, “if the first elected Congress had a five-year term, why can’t the first elected Bangsamoro Parliament have a five-year term as well in order to synchronize next elections and not disadvantage the first elected Parliament by cutting their three-year term too much?” (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
