BIFF rejects invite to Bangsamoro law congressional hearing

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - The outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) on Friday again rejected invitations to participate in congressional hearings on the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

“We cannot join in any peace process that falls short of our bid for an independent Moro state,” the group’s spokesman, Abu Misry Mama, announced over Catholic station dxMS in Cotabato City.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chair of the 75-member House committee now working on the proposed law, earlier said they want the BIFF’s reclusive chieftain, Imam Ameril Ombra Kato and Nur Misuari of the Moro National Liberation Front to participate in the BBL deliberations.

The draft BBL, once enacted into law and ratified via a plebiscite, will pave the way for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a new, more politically empowered Bangsamoro self-governing entity based on the March 27, 2014 final peace compact between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Kato, now debilitated as a result of a hypertensive stroke in 2011, started as chief of the MILF’s 105th Base Command, but was booted out in 2010 due to insubordination and other offenses.

“We better keep on fighting the military in the field than engage in any hearing on that draft BBL. That is purely an initiative of the MILF and the government,” Mama said.

Kato, who studied Islamic theology in Saudia Arabia in the 1970s as a scholar of then President Ferdinand Marcos, had issued a communiqué reaffirming their group’s firm stand against the GPH-MILF peace initiative.

“We can only tell Congressman Rodriguez thanks for the invitation. None from the BIFF can join the hearings,” Mama said.