Chapter 05 of 05 · Discover BARMM
Who runs your province, town, and barangay
A governor, a mayor, a barangay captain — and, on a different ballot entirely, a Member of Parliament. Which is which, and where to look each one up.
BARMM is an autonomous regional government sitting over provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays that keep their own elected officials. The Bangsamoro Parliament does not replace a governor, a mayor, or a barangay captain — it is a different office on a different ballot, and confusing the two is the single most common mistake readers arrive with.
The Bangsamoro Local Governance Code, enacted in 2023, sets out how local units inside the region are governed. The national Local Government Code of 1991 still defines the offices themselves: the governor and provincial board, the mayor and the council, the punong barangay and the sangguniang barangay.
The Ministry of the Interior and Local Government is the regional ministry that supervises these units. It is the first place to ask about any province, city, municipality, or barangay inside BARMM.
A full directory — every unit, every elected official, down to the barangay — is a workspace on our list and is not built yet. This chapter gives the structure and points at the offices that already hold the record.
Who governs your barangay, town, and province.
From the region down to the barangay: what each unit is, which posts are on the ballot, and how many of each the Bangsamoro actually has.
What the region contains
3 cities. 105 municipalities. 2,180 barangays.
4,714,166 people · July 1, 2024
01
The region
BARMM — an autonomous regional government, not a local government unit.
Voters elect the Bangsamoro Parliament; the Parliament then chooses the Chief Minister from among its own members. Nobody votes for a Chief Minister directly. The first regular election for these seats is September 14, 2026.
You elect
- Members of Parliament (80 seats)
02
The province
Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi — plus the Special Geographic Area.
The provincial board is the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. Its members are elected by district, which is why a province with more districts sends more board members.
You elect
- Governor
- Vice-Governor
- Sangguniang Panlalawigan members
03
The city or municipality
The town or city hall — 3 component cities and 105 municipalities across the region, Sulu excluded.
This is the rung most public services are actually delivered from, and the one most people mean when they say “the LGU”.
You elect
- Mayor
- Vice-Mayor
- Sangguniang Panlungsod or Sangguniang Bayan members
04
The barangay
The basic political unit — 2,180 of them across the units in this directory.
Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan officials are elected together, on their own schedule, separate from both the national midterms and the Bangsamoro parliamentary election.
You elect
- Punong Barangay
- 7 Sangguniang Barangay members
- SK Chairperson and 7 SK members
Ministry of the Interior and Local Government
The BARMM ministry that supervises local government units in the region — the first place to ask about a province, city, municipality or barangay inside BARMM.
COMELEC
Official candidate lists and election results, including barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections. The record of who was actually elected.
PSA — Philippine Standard Geographic Code
The authoritative list of every province, city, municipality and barangay in the country, with the codes that identify them.
Bangsamoro Official Gazette
Where Bangsamoro Autonomy Acts are published, including the Local Governance Code and any law creating or reorganising a local unit.
Keep it honest
Names change.Figures get revised.
Where this chapter differs from an official page, the official page is right — and the correction is welcome. Send the source and it gets checked against the record.