Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino expressed concern over Sulu's fiscal problem after the Supreme Court (SC) ruled to exclude the provicne from Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Acknowledging the national government's lack of anticipation of the high court’s ruling that the province of Sulu is not part of the BARMM, Tolentino said the consequence is the difficulty of funding BARMM offices in the detached province.
The lawmaker was reacting to Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan's report that employees of the BARMM offices in his province were already informed of the last salary until Sept. 10.
Tan also reported that the BARMM offices in their province lack funds to sustain operations, including rentals and utilities, which the Sulu provincial government cannot shoulder.
Tolentino assured the governor of his continuing quest to resolve the issue while budget hearings on national agencies are ongoing in Congress.
He said he has always asked the departments during the budget hearing how they could help the province of Sulu, whose funding from the BARMM, where it once belonged, would be stopped.
However, Tolentino said the Departments of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Science and Technology (DOST) were unable to answer how to assist Sulu province in the previous budget hearings.
He said that during the DILG budget hearing, he asked to which region the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Sulu now belongs after the province was rendered without a region with the high court’s ruling.
Tolentino shared that the PNP told him that the PNP in Sulu would be placed under Region IX, or the Zamboanga Peninsula, which Tan said was the regional unit in command before the BARMM.
Tolentino also raised his concern during the hearing for the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DWSD) on Monday, September. There, mentioned the reduced 2025 budget of DWSD for Region IX (Zamboanga Peninsula) in light of a recent SC removing Sulu from BARMM.
“Under your General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2024, you have P11 billion. Now, it has been reduced to P10 billion for the Zamboanga Peninsula. Current rules would dictate that Sulu, which was removed from BARMM, would be transferred to Region IX. How do you rectify this? How do you fill the blank left by the budgetary gap because of the removal of Sulu from the financial arm of BARMM?” he asked.
Tolentino also stated that he learned that the salaries of the Sulu employees had already been halted as of September 10 because the SC ruling is immediately executory.
“So, we are not only looking at the 2025 budget but even the current budget of Sulu lodged with the BARMM,” Tolentino added.
DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian informed Tolentino that they will submit the department’s fixed programs with the commensurate administrative costs to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) within two weeks so the DBM could “carve out the portion of the administrative cost that’s directly transferred to the BARMM for Sulu and transfer it back to the DSWD.”