Bangsamoro Majority Warned Against Parliamentary Overreach

Miriam Coronel-Ferrer warned that the new Bangsamoro Parliament could become “a tyranny of the majority” if its ruling bloc treats itself as the Government of the Day. In recent Facebook posts, the former chair of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) peace panel said the minority’s right to choose its leaders must be respected. The fight is over who gets a voice inside the institution—and who gets to wield executive authority.

Who Holds Executive Power

“We can now glean how the Bangsamoro Parliament will operate when the majority is equating the Government of the Day with the Parliament,” Coronel-Ferrer wrote. She added: “Remember: the parliament has a majority only because there is a minority. The minority’s selection of their leaders should not be relegated to the committee level.”

That distinction is central to her warning. Coronel-Ferrer said the Government of the Day is the executive body, while Parliament includes both the ruling coalition and the opposition. “The Government of the Day’s authority as the executive body comes from the parliament, not the other way around,” she wrote.

In a separate post addressed to Parliament, she put the point bluntly: “You are not the Government of the Day.” She said the ruling coalition forms the Government of the Day, while the opposition makes up the minority. “So yes, there remains a majority and a minority in Parliament. And as of last count, there are 80 of you,” she wrote, urging members to consult the Bangsamoro Administrative Code.

The Minority’s Place in the Machinery

In a third post, written in Filipino, Coronel-Ferrer explained that the Government of the Day consists of the Chief Minister and Cabinet. The ruling coalition in Parliament forms that executive body and supplies the Chief Minister and most Cabinet ministers.

She contrasted this arrangement with a presidential system, where separation of powers prevents a person from serving as both a legislator and an executive member. In the parliamentary system she described, the executive is drawn from Parliament, but remains distinct from the legislature. Coronel-Ferrer called it “ibang hayop” (“a different animal”).

The opposition, she said, serves as the main check-and-balance mechanism because it consists of the minority that did not join the ruling coalition. Her warning is that this role can be weakened if the majority treats Parliament as though it were simply the executive government, or pushes minority leadership choices down to committee level.

The Rules and the Unfinished Cabinet

Coronel-Ferrer said floor leader and committee chair positions belong within Parliament, not the Government of the Day. She said the parties that will lead and form the Government of the Day have been identified, but the regional government was not complete because no Cabinet had been formed.

On October 30, the ruling coalition elected Abdulraof Macacua as chief minister during the inaugural session of the first regular parliament. The institutional lines she described are laid out in Section 4 of Bangsamoro Autonomy Act No. 13, the Bangsamoro Administrative Code.

That section defines the Government of the Day as “the Cabinet headed by the Chief Minister, and composed of other Ministers appointed by him, majority of whom shall also be Members of the Parliament, that exercises executive authority in the Bangsamoro Government.” It also says that during the transition period, the Government of the Day was the MILF-led majority, with participation by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and other Bangsamoro Parliament members who voted for MILF leadership.

“In sum, the Government of the Day (executive body) is a different animal from parliament (legislative body), although the two overlap in composition,” Coronel-Ferrer wrote. Her warning is aimed at a familiar pressure point in parliamentary authority: when the majority’s control of government is allowed to swallow the minority’s role inside Parliament.