ZAMBOANGA CITY--Bangsamoro, which will soon replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), is not an “Islamic State.”
Commissioner Jose Lorena of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) said that Bangsamoro is a “secular state,” where the residents are Muslims, Christians and highlanders or the Lumads.
Lorena made this clarification here on Saturday during a media forum entitled “Understanding the Bangsamoro Peace Process” organized by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP).
The other resource speaker in the forum is OPAPP Undersecretary Nabil Tan, the chairperson of the Government Implementing Panel for the Bangsamoro Peace Accords.
Lorena, a lawyer, sought to dispel the notion that once an area is named Bangsamoro, it is for, or dominated by, Muslims.
He said the region’s name will be changed to Bangsamoro since the ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) is “more confusing.”
“Because if you talk of Muslim Mindanao, the impression is that the residents are all Muslims,” he added.
Lorena has also allayed fear of non-muslims, saying the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) provides equal rights to all the Bangsamoro residents.
“In fact you can be a chief minister even if you are a non-muslim, even if your are a christian,” he said.
“Bangsamoro is not a Muslim political entity,” he further said.
The objective of the forum is to provide a venue for local journalists, who are also covering the neighboring island provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi, to understand the entire Bangsamoro Peace Process, including the passage of the BBL.
“This is part of the over-all campaign of the Duterte administration to resolve the decades-old problem of armed conflict in Mindanao,” the OPAPP said in a letter to the Zamboanga Press Club, Inc.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1039255
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