Minority Floor Leader Atty. Laisa Masuhud Alamia delivered her sponsorship speech for BARMM Bill No. 23 or An Act Protecting the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on March 24, 2021.
Addressing her fellow members of parliament, MP Alamia invoked their shared realities, having lived through displacement and the human rights violations it inflicts upon their own families and communities. “As public servants and primary duty bearers,” she said, “it is now our mandate and moral responsibility to prevent these violations of our peoples’ right to safety and security and institutionalize a response mechanism that supports IDPs through the different phases of displacement.”
Among the references used for the bill is the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, as it provides a definition of an IDP and a comprehensive statement of what protections IDPs require. It also covers all phases of displacement, namely “the pre-displacement phase, providing protection from unlawful displacement; protection and assistance during displacement; and durable solutions, namely return, local integration at the place of displacement or resettlement in another part of the country and reintegration.
”The proposed bill has reached the first reading on October 23, 2019. Since then, there have been at least 75 incidents of displacement across the BARMM, affecting roughly 14,000 families or 70,000 persons.
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