House aims to pass BBL this month

MANILA, Philippines – The House of Representatives will try to resume this week debates on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, with the aim of passing the BBL this month.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chairman of the ad hoc committee on the BBL, said the measure as reported by his panel to the plenary should be totally acceptable to his colleagues as all unconstitutional provisions have been deleted.

“The bill should no longer be referred to as BBL but BLBAR or Basic Law of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region to emphasize the fact that what we crafted was for an autonomous region, not a territory,” Rodriguez told The STAR.

A product of negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the BLBAR seeks to create a new autonomous region in Mindanao.

Rodriguez said the panel amended some 40 provisions in the original draft submitted by Malacañang that lawmakers deemed unconstitutional.

He said President Aquino, who continues to push for the BLBAR, accepted the revisions.

The deleted provisions include the “opt-in” section, wherein a contiguous area may seek to conduct a plebiscite to join the Bangsamoro autonomous region upon the request of 10 percent of its population.

The lawmaker said the MILF earlier asked the House to restore at least 28 of the 40 deleted provisions and opposed the change of the bill’s title to BLBAR.

“We told MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal that we could not restore them because they’re all unconstitutional,” Rodriguez said.

The main obstacle, he said, was more of the quorum. Because of the coming elections, House members spend more time in their districts instead of attending sessions.

“The standing instruction is, if there is a quorum, we’ll put the BLBAR for discussion.”

Meanwhile, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said if the plebiscite for the BBL would be included in the 2016 elections, it would likely be conducted manually, given the time constraint.

Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said they need six months to prepare for a plebiscite.

Lim said they need time to procure the equipment and paraphernalia.

“One thing we proposed to Congress was to allow us with the alternative mode of procurement if they would want us to cut short the six months,” he said.

The Comelec suggested not to hold a bidding anymore as this is time consuming.

Congress is not amenable to the idea.

The Comelec is hoping the plebiscite would be synchronized with the elections to save time and money. – With Sheila Crisostomo