THE Bangsamoro parliament on Tuesday tackled three bills that seek to improve education, infrastructure, and social development in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Speaker Ali Pangalian Balindong said one of the bills will require school-level management to establish decent functional restrooms in all public and private schools across the region.
Another measure proposes to create a sub-district engineering office in BARMM’s Special Geographic Area (SGA). Both will be deliberated for second reading at the plenary.
On Tuesday, member of parliament Naguib Sinarimbo filed Parliament Bill 279 which proposes additional death benefits for the region’s barangay chairmen and Sanggunian Kabataan (SK) chairpersons.
As proposed, the death benefit financial package ranges from P 500,000 to P1 million, as opposed to the existing P20,000.
The measure requires however, that the deceased died in performance of official duties.
An innovative mechanics follows the shariah-compliant taqaful insurance system that is also much patronized in the west. The insurance principle of Taqaful, an Arabic word which literally means cooperation, is applied in the policies of the giant UK-Life assurance company for its Muslim clients in England, Sinarimbo said.
The annual funds allocation provided through Parliamentary legislation would be lumped up with the annual regional budget, to be managed by the Regional Treasurer’s Office.
The funds are investible in character either directly by the Treasury Office through T-Bills, or based on technical advice of taqaful financial experts, Sinarimbo said.
He also said elected barangay officials used to receive in stark contrast with the remunerations of top-ranked officials.
“It is about time that the law is fairer to our officials in the first line of services to the people,” he said.
Another bill deliberated upon “seeks to integrate a 2.5-percent zakat obligatory due for Muslim employees’ salaries, with the conventional individual income tax that is usually 10 percent withheld-at-source on employees.”
Balindong said the measure would have to be harmonized with any proposed draft of a Bangsamoro Internal Revenue Code to establish for a common formula for both automatic deductions, as well as the management, especially of an accumulating zakat funds in the region:
One Islamic expert asked; “Will it be a trust fund? Or “a fund under board management that is disburse-able for charitable purposes, to be defined by such a board as its policymaking body”?
Bangsamoro policymakers should also review a comparative study on both taxes and zakat and its welfare to the society in general, said Dr. Salem Lingasa, chairman of the Bangsamoro Commission on the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.
BTA Bill No. 219 was approved during Monday’s committee meeting, shortly after the regular session of the parliament, officials disclosed.
The measure proposes the geo-tagging of infrastructure projects from photos taken at four stages of implementation, namely: 1) pre-construction site preparation; 2) during mobilization; 3) in monthly progress reports, and 4) upon completion.
The panel also adopted two resolutions; one pushing for wider use of renewable energy in the region, and two, proposing dredging of the Pulangi River, particularly the part that cuts across communities in the Special Geographic Area to Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur.
