MILF hopes PNoy calls for passage of Bangsamoro Law in final SONA

From GMA News (Jul 26): MILF hopes PNoy calls for passage of Bangsamoro Law in final SONA

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front hopes President Benigno Aquino III will push for the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law during his final State of the Nation Address on Monday, its chairman said Saturday.

At a forum with Mindanao and Manila journalists at Camp Darapanan, MILF Chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim said the group expects the president to reiterate his support for the bill, which will implement the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed in 2014.

Murad also hopes the president would use the opportunity "to enlighten those who are still opposing," and that Congress will pass an "undiluted" BBL that complies with the CAB and its annexes.

"What is ideal is that BBL will be passed as it is now," he said. "We do not want to fail our people."

Murad clarified that the BBL is not meant just for the MILF but for the entire Bangsamoro people.

He added it is now the responsibility of the Philippine government to deliver on the agreements reached in the CAB.

Murad said, however, that even if the BBL is not passed before the end of the Aquino administration "we will continue to demand that the CAB and its annexes be implemented.

"Among those agreements are the delineation of powers that the proposed Bangsamoro political entity will have, which powers the national government will keep, and which will be shared.

He said that any president who will replace Aquino will have to solve the "Bangsamoro question", which can only be solved through the peace process.

Passage of the BBL was delayed after the January 25 clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where more than 60 people died in a law enforcement operation against international terrorists hiding in a remote part of the distant town.

Murad admitted that the clash had “a very big impact on the ongoing peace process."

However, the CAB, a product of 17 years of negotiations, cannot be renegotiated.

"We will not allow violations [of the CAB], but we may allow improvements to provisions not directly coming from the agreement," he said in reference to House and Senate revisions to the BBL.

Constitutionality

The BBL has drawn criticism for provisions that some lawmakers and legal experts say are unconstitutional, including those that supposedly create a separate police force and create counterparts of Constitutional bodies.

Supporters of the bill, including chief government negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer countered that the BBL will not create a separate police force and the proposed bodies will not replace the Constitutional commissions.

Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, OMI, who supports the peace process and the passage of the BBL, said Friday that the bill should "go without [the provisions] being deleted to the Supreme Court." The SC can remove unconstitutional provisions.

However, he admitted that the SC will not be able to insert otherwise good provisions that Congress removes.

Bangsamoro political partyMurad said that although the MILF has formed the United Bangsamoro Justice Party in preparation for elections for the Bangsamoro government in 2016, it will not participate in the polls unless the BBL is passed.

He said, however, that non-organic members of the UBJP -- supporters of the Bangsamoro struggle who are not members of the MILF -- might yet join the elections givent that the MILF Central Committee has yet to decide on the matter.

However, if the BBL is passed and elections for the Bangsamoro regional government are held, the party will only contest positions in that government.

Local government positions "will complicate" the situation and the party would rather leave local politics to politicians already involved.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/528522/news/nation/milf-hopes-pnoy-calls-for-passage-of-bangsamoro-law-in-final-sona