Senate OKs postponement of BARMM polls
(UPDATE) THE Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading the bill that seeks to postpone the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) elections from May to October 2025.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last week certified as urgent the passage of the measure.
Voting 18-1-0, the senators approved Senate Bill (SB) 2862, resetting the first regular BARMM parliamentary elections. Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel III voted «no.»
Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri explained his vote in favor of rescheduling the BARMM polls.
«With the recent Supreme Court ruling that separated Sulu from the BARMM, we need time to reconfigure the composition of the Bangsamoro Parliament to address the parliamentary seats that would have belonged to Sulu,» he said.
«We must also consider the legislative representation of the Special Geographic Area — what we are trying to establish as a new province in the Bangsamoro — to make sure that they are not disenfranchised when it comes to the elections,» he said.
«The elections are the purest form of our democracy and our freedom to shape our future, so we must ensure that every voter has the power to do so. We fought long and hard for the autonomy of the BARMM,» Zubiri said.
Advertisement«Let us not waste what we fought for by allowing the region to descend into chaos over an election that does not fully empower all of our brothers and sisters in the Bangsamoro region.»