Government peace panel chairman Miriam Coronel-Ferrer File photo
The government peace panel will continue to reach out to opponents of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), panel chairman Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said yesterday.
“The good Lord said, what good would it do if you love only brothers? To have peace, we need to reach out to those who are not like us. May Easter bring back love,” Ferrer said.
The Senate and the House of Representatives decided to suspend deliberations on the draft BBL following the killing of 44 police Special action Force (SAF) commandos after an encounter with Muslim rebels last Jan. 25 in Mamasapano. Maguindanao.
The BBL is the enabling law that would replace the existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with a new Bangsamoro region.
Different views have been expressed by leading personalities in the country including former President and Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.
Estrada, who launched an all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) during his presidency in 2000, maintained that only an all-out offensive against the rebels could solve the Mindanao conflict.
He said that, like the previous administrations, his administration also conducted peace talks with the Muslim armed groups.
However, Estrada said he was forced to stop the peace process and launch an all-out war against the MILF after realizing the lack of sincerity and honesty of the insurgents in the peace process.
Estrada said his all-out war resulted in the government’s takeover of 46 camps of the MILF.
Defending the BBL, Ferrer earlier said that the government is not “over-financing” the proposed Bangsamoro regional government or even the ARMM.
Comparing the projected Bangsamoro budget with the funds received by other regions like the National Capital Region from the national government, Ferrer said that the P35 billion the government proposes to give the Bangsamoro in its first year is only half of what is being spent by the government in NCR.
“Today, the ARMM gets about P15,000 per capita subsidy from the national government. Compare that to the P34,000 per capita that Metro Manilans get from the national budget,” Ferrer said.
Ferrer said that the per capita subsidy is the average amount that goes to each resident in the region.
Even with the P8 billion to P11 billion new money that will go to the Bangsamoro if it is established in 2016, Ferrer said the per capita in the Bangsamoro would increase to only about P18,000.
She also clarified that the power and authority of constitutional bodies like the Commission on Audit (COA), Commission on Elections (Comelec), Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and Civil Service Commission (CSC) will not be diminished.
Ferrer said that these agencies would operate like regional offices or as supplementary offices in the Bangsamoro that would help strengthen the system of checks and balances in the region.
She also reiterated that the proposed BBL does not provide for automatic integration of armed fighters of the MILF to the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, but they could apply and need to go through the rigorous standard hiring processes applied by the AFP and the PNP.
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/04/06/1440766/government-peace-panel-continue-reaching-out-critics
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