MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) en banc on Tuesday, November 26, denied motions for reconsideration that sought to overturn the September 9 ruling that excluded Sulu from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

The High Court said its decision is final and immediately executory, closing the door to any further appeals.

“No further pleadings will be entertained,” the SC said.

Sources confirmed to Rappler that the High Court’s decision was unanimous.

The SC put an emphasis on the effectivity of its latest decision as there had been a different interpretation about its earlier ruling. Some believed that the September decision has yet to be finalized, so the High Court recently reiterated that its BARMM decision was actually immediately executory.

The motions, filed by the interim BARMM government, were part of a series of legal efforts since October to challenge the ruling. While the September decision upheld the constitutionality of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), it however determined that Sulu should no longer be part of the autonomous region since the province did not ratify the law during the 2019 plebiscite. 

The September ruling was penned by SC Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen.

BARMM spokesperson Mohd Asnin Pendatun, in an earlier interview with Rappler, said the outcome of the 2019 plebiscite on the BOL had been interpreted to mean that provinces of the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) would vote as a bloc. Although Sulu rejected the BOL, it was included in the BARMM because the ARMM provinces were considered one collective unit.

Pendatun said Sulu’s voters may not have fully understood the implications of their vote against the BOL, which ultimately led to their exclusion from BARMM.

But with the SC’s latest ruling, the issue of Sulu’s status in the Bangsamoro region appears to have reached its legal conclusion. However, its political and social implications may take longer to settle.

For one, Sulu’s exclusion would mean leaving seven of the 80 district seats reserved for it in the BARMM in limbo. Neither the interim Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) nor the Commission on Elections (Comelec) have decided yet what to do with Sulu’s seven parliamentary district seats.

The exclusion also meant the removal of former Sulu governor Abdusakur Tan II as a top challenger for the leadership post in BARMM, curently held by Chief Minister Ahod “Al-Hajj Murad” Balawag Ebrahim of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Tan was earlier designated by four political parties to be the unified candidate against Ebrahim.

Tan was the petitioner who sought the declaration of BARMM as unconstitutional. – Rappler.com