COTABATO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 2, 2014) – The draft law on the new Muslim homeland in Mindanao is still being reviewed by the Aquino government before the President signs it to ensure it complies with the provisions of the Philippine Constitution.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the Bangsamoro Basic Law which was submitted in April by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission is still being evaluated and studied by the Office of the President and the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Alfredo Caguioa.
“We are making sure that this will stand judicial scrutiny. To a large extent, we want to make sure that when it goes to Congress, it will be as smooth as possible,” Lacierda said.
Manila has recently signed the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, but its leaders are worried over the delays in Aquino’s signing of the draft law.
Once Aquino signs the draft law, it would be submitted to Congress for ratification before it can be decided on a plebiscite – probably before the year ends – in Muslim areas in southern Philippines that would make up the new Bangsamoro autonomous region and replace the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao that has suffered from decades of poverty, corruption, and conflict.
Lacierda said the delay in the signing was due to the evaluation of the draft law. “It is the evaluation of the bill itself. They have to go through each and every provision just to be sure that it is in sync with the agreement,” he said, adding, Aquino wanted to be sure that the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) can stand on its own, should there be a challenge to its constitutionality.
“We can assure Chairman Mohagher Iqbal that the Bangsamoro Basic bill will reflect the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro and its annexes,” Lacierda said.
Iqbal is the chief MILF peace negotiator and also chairman of the 15-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission.
“We are seriously worried about the delay in signing of the BBL by President Aquino and this further delay the implementation of the peace agreement – the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro – and it creates problems not only to the Aquino government, but the MILF as well. It’s a political problem and government has to address this quickly because we are running out of time here,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Lawyer Anna Basman, head of the CAB legal team, said: “Our Constitution itself provides the justification for the asymmetry and reserved a separate set of provisions for two particular areas in the country – Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras.”
“This progressive and enlightened section recognizes the uniqueness of the peoples belonging to these areas and provides for their rightful exercise of self-governance. The Bangsamoro Basic Law as the enabling law for the establishment of the Bangsamoro precisely aims to operationalize this constitutional objective.”
Presidential peace adviser Teresita Deles has previously said that the BBL is likely to be certified as an urgent bill by Aquino, but some lawmakers and various groups were saying that the accord was unconstitutional and vowed to challenge it in court.
But despite the government insistence that the BBL is legal, Aquino, up to now, has failed to act on the passage of this to Congress, and officials only give rhetorical statement every time the issue is raised in public. (Mindanao Examiner)
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