'Govt pushing a BBL that won't solve Bangsamoro Question' - MILF

From InterAksyon (Jul 24): 'Govt pushing a BBL that won't solve Bangsamoro Question' - MILF

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has accused the government of attempting to force its acceptance of a version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law “that may be constitutional but will not solve the Bangsamoro Question.”

In an editorial on its website, Luwaran, the MILF maintained that it would not renegotiate “all those issues that are settled in the” Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and its annexes, including all “settled language.”

“The MILF will never renegotiate these settled issues. This is the reason that the current status of engagement is no longer negotiation but discussion and the GPH and MILF are not only partners but are engaged in problem-solving mode,” it added.

The MILF stressed that its objective is “to end tyranny, restore dignity and secure a bright and prosperous future all in the Bangsamoro Homeland.”

“The current government proposals will not restore dignity to a people who suffered tyranny and will not secure a peaceful and prosperous future,” it added.

The MILF position followed the admission by government peace panel chair Miriam Coronel-Ferrer that "there continue to be significant points of differences" over the draft BBL, whose enactment would pave the way for the creation of the new Bangsamoro entity.

The disclosures by both parties could indicate the differences over the draft BBL are more serious than they have seemed.

The draft law, drawn up by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, was originally supposed to be submitted to Congress before it adjourned last month.

However, this was delayed by the review conducted by a legal team created by the Office of the President.

Although a new target to submit the draft BBL to Congress has been set to immediately after President Benigno Aquino III’s State of the Nation Address on Monday, the MILF has raised serious objections to the OP’s comments on the draft law, which it said “dilutes the BTC’s text and … in many instances departed from the letter and spirit” of the FAB and its annexes, “which is the basis of the crafting of the BBL.”

This objection, which was first raised publicly by chief MILF negotiator and BTC chairman Mohagher Iqbal, prompted Coronel to offer assurances the government was “not throwing in the towel.”

Both parties also met for four days in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month but achieved only “modest progress.”

In the editorial, the MILF said the OP gave the BTC a copy of the draft BBL with its comments only on June 23, or 61 days after it received a copy of the proposed law on April 22.

It added that a four-tiered series of meetings between the BTC and OP “never took place, except the fourth and highest engagement” when Aquino met MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim met in Hiroshima on June 24.

The editorial also faulted the government by continuing to resurrect “issues that were already settled in the FAB and its Annexes,” including differences in specific phrases such as “ancestral domain to ancestral domains, central to national, Bangsamoro people to Bangsamoro peoples, etc.”

But the most serious issue, said the MILF, is the OP’s adoption of what it called “a very conservative interpretation of the Constitution, which is a radical departure from what the government has been saying --- and promised --- that the flexibility of the Constitution would enable them to implement the FAB and its Annexes.”

Because of “the wide disparity between the two positions of the two parties, finding an agreed version takes some time,” it said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/91873/govt-pushing-a-bbl-that-wont-solve-bangsamoro-question---milf