[8][9] ARMM was nominally disestablished after the ratification of BOL and will be effectively replaced by the BARMM upon the constitution of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, an interim government for the region.

The plebiscite was conducted in the proposed area of ARMM on November 17, 1989, in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.

[15] The 400-year-long resistance against the Japanese, Americans, and Spanish by the Moro Muslims persisted and morphed into their current war for independence against the Philippine state.

In the 1970s, escalating hostilities between government forces and the Moro National Liberation Front prompted President Ferdinand Marcos to issue a proclamation forming an Autonomous Region in the Southern Philippines.

6734 (otherwise known as the Organic Act), primarily authored by Aquilino Pimentel Jr.,[18] in pursuance with a constitutional mandate to provide for an autonomous area in Muslim Mindanao.

42, enacted on September 22, 1995, sought to permanently fix the seat of regional government at Parang in Maguindanao del Norte, pending the completion of required buildings and infrastructure.

9054, was passed by Congress on February 7, 2001, with a view to expand the territory and powers of the ARMM by amending the original Organic Act (R.A. No.

[22] However, on July 16, 2008, the Supreme Court of the Philippines voided the creation of Shariff Kabunsuan, declaring unconstitutional Section 19 in RA 9054 which granted the ARMM Regional Assembly the power to create provinces and cities.

[23] On July 18, 2008, Hermogenes Esperon, peace advisor to then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in his talks with Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels in Malaysia, revealed the planned expansion of the region.

[24] The deal, negotiated in secret talks with the MILF and subject to approval, would give the ARMM control of an additional 712 villages on the south west portion of Mindanao, as well as broader political and economic powers.

On August 4, 2008, after local officials from Cotabato asked the Supreme Court to block the signing of the agreement between the Philippine government and MILF, the Court issued a temporary restraining order against the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the Philippine government and the MILF rebels in Malaysia.

[25] Several lawmakers had filed petitions with the Supreme Court to stop the Philippine government from concluding the MOA-AD due to lack of transparency and for MILF's failure to cut ties with the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, which aims to establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia using MILF camps in southwestern Mindanao as training grounds and staging points for attacks.

The furtive process by which the MOA-AD was designed and crafted runs contrary to and in excess of the legal authority, and amounts to a whimsical, capricious, oppressive, arbitrary and despotic exercise thereof.

It illustrates a gross evasion of positive duty and a virtual refusal to perform the duty enjoined.”[29][30][31] Due to the challenges in establishing the Bangsamoro entity in the previous administrations, then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City announced his intent to establish a federal form of government which would replace the unitary form of government in his campaign speeches for the 2016 Philippine presidential election, which he subsequently won.

that Isabela City, Basilan, Lamitan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi may become a single federal state, while Lanao del Sur, Marawi, Cotabato City, and Maguindanao may become a single federal state as well because the Muslims of the Sulu archipelago have a different heritage from the Muslims in mainland Mindanao.

The membership at the time of ARMM's abolition was 24, where 6 are from Lanao del Sur including Marawi City, 6 from Maguindanao, 6 from Sulu, 3 from Basilan, and 3 from Tawi-Tawi.

It exercised legislative power in the autonomous region, except on the following matters: foreign affairs, national defense and security, postal service, coinage and fiscal and monetary policies, administration of justice, quarantine, customs and tariff, citizenship, naturalization, immigration and deportation, general auditing, national elections, maritime, land, and air transportation, communications, patents, trademarks, trade names, and copyrights, foreign trade, and may legislate on matters covered by the Sharia, the law governing Muslims.

The Sharia applied only to Muslims; its applications are limited by pertinent constitutional provisions (prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment).