Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Monday said he expects the rescheduling of the first regular elections of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Roque said that instead of 2022, the BARMM polls may be reset to 2025.
“I know that both Houses (of Congress) have passed this [measure]. So, there is no impediment for it to become law. It becomes a law if the President does not sign it within a certain number of days,” he said.
House Bill 10121 proposing to postpone the elections for three years was approved on September 15, a week after the Senate passed its version.
The bill aims to give the next President the power to appoint the 80 members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA).
“For me, it would be smooth. I think the elections will really be postponed and the members of the BARMM will be appointed by the President,” said Roque.
The BTA is the provisional law-making body of the BARMM, which is currently under a transition phase.
The transition plan is set to be completed in 2022 in time for the election of new regional officials and coinciding with the local and national polls on May 9.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted activities, including the third decommissioning phase.
Some 12,000 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) combatants have been decommissioned during the second phase of the normalization track that ran from August 2019 to March 2020.
The normalization process includes not just the decommissioning of MILF combatants and their weapons but also the transformation of several camps into productive and resilient communities.