Draft BBL to be submitted to Congress next week

MANILA, Philippines - The long-delayed draft of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) will be submitted to the House of Representatives before President Aquino leaves for his European trip on Sept. 13, it was learned yesterday.

Presidential Communications Operations Office  Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said this means it will be submitted anytime now, or between now and the date of Aquino’s departure for Europe, when he will visit France, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

The promise to present the draft measure, which Aquino is expected to certify as urgent, came from Secretary Teresita Deles of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, who declared the BBL as a done deal.

“The draft BBL is now undergoing final stages of refinement. By the estimate of Moro Islamic Liberation Front panel and Bangsamoro Transition Commission chair Mohagher Iqbal, the draft bill is now 99.99 percent done,” Deles said in a statement.

According to Deles, the draft BBL “was completed almost two weeks ago.”

“On the basis of the President’s comments, there were further discussion and exchange of notes between MILF and the Office of the President, the results of which were also submitted to the President,” she said.

The MILF welcomed the government’s announcement that the bill was ready to go before Congress.

“The situation was heated before but our commanders are relieved with this development because we hurdled this difficult stage,” MILF vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar said.

However, Jaafar cautioned there were still many potential pitfalls ahead, citing legislators’ potential amendments to the draft bill.

He said the MILF was also concerned about the law being challenged in the Supreme Court.

The government negotiating panel, led by Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, and the MILF camp failed to meet its target to submit the draft priority measure to Congress on the last week of August.

Concerns about the process then arose after Aquino rejected an initial draft, put together by a panel of MILF and government negotiators.

MILF chief negotiator Iqbal signed the cover letter of the draft bill, addressed to Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., when they submitted the measure to President Aquino.

Aquino has majority support in both chambers of Congress, and he is expected to be able to secure support for the bill.

“There’s enough goodwill in Congress to see this through at the soonest possible time,” Ferrer said.

The BBL will embody the comprehensive peace agreement signed last March by the MILF and the government, aiming to end the decades-long armed conflict in Mindanao.

The bill seeks to create a new Bangsamoro political entity that will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The measure is expected to stipulate power-sharing and wealth-sharing arrangements between the national government and the new political entity. – Roel Pareño, Jose Rodel Clapano, Perseus Echeminada, AFP