COTABATO CITY — A lawyer-member of parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) has filed a bill seeking to create a regional office that will address the needs of Bangsamoro communities outside the territory.
Member of Parliament Maisara Dandamun-Latiph filed the bill before the Bangsamoro Transition Authority on Thursday.
“The assistance to the Bangsamoro communities outside BARMM should not be optional,” Latiph told newsmen here in an interview Friday.
She filed BTA-Parliament Bill No. 15 titled “An Act Creating the Office of the Bangsamoro Communities Outside Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BCOBAR) Defining its Powers, Functions, and Responsibilities and Appropriating Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes.”
The proposed bill seeks to give life to Article VI, Section 12 of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), which urges the Bangsamoro government to enhance the economic, social, and cultural development of Bangsamoro people living outside the main BARMM dominion in Mindanao.
Parliament members Mohagher Iqbal and Dr. Safrullah Dipatuan manifested their interests to co-author the said bill.
Latiph said the budget for the creation of such office will be taken from the PHP70-billion block grant to the Bangsamoro government in 2020.
At least two million Muslims are living outside the BARMM, based on the population census in 2015. The region has a 3.7 million population based on the 2015 census.
Most of the Muslims outside BARMM are living in Metro Manila and provinces within Mindanao either as government servants or merchants. -PNA
