IN my column last January regarding the revitalization of the South-South Cooperation (SSC) Program that involved the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Philippine Commission on Population (PopCom), United Nations Population Fund, and Indonesia's National Population and Family Planning Board, I mentioned that the interim Bangsamoro Population and Development Office (BPDO) took charge of organizing the participation of BARMM's delegation to the SSC activities in Bandung, Indonesia. The interim unit is directly supervised by the Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority (BPDA-BARMM), the office that serves as the socioeconomic development planning and policy coordinating authority of the regional government. This is an encouraging development because from the start of the SSC program implementation in 2012 until 2021, the BARMM partners relied on technical support from the staff of PopCom's central and Region 12 ( Soccsksargen) offices. PopCom's Region 12 office is also responsible for implementing its mandate in a large area covering five provinces, which have a total population of close to 5 million in 2020. The assumption of the interim BPDO in extending technical support to SSC and other population management and development programs in the region is indeed a positive change in the BARMM.
It is also heartening to learn that a bill (BTA Bill 110), which will institutionalize the BPDO's position in the BARMM, was filed in the Bangsamoro Parliament. This bill was introduced by Dr. Kadil Sinolinding Jr., a newly appointed member of the parliament (and also a former SSC co-chairman and health secretary of the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao), and authored by "The Government of the Day." Its short title is the "Bangsamoro Commission on Population and Development Act of 2022," and it specifically proposed the creation of the Bangsamoro Commission on Population Management and Development (BCPMD). It passed the first reading at the parliament last January. I will highlight the major aspects of this bill.
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