Friday, January 8, 2016

MILF: House Speaker Belmonte says no need for Plan B on BBL

Posted to the MILF Website (Jan 7): House Speaker Belmonte says no need for Plan B on BBL

House Speaker Belmonte says no need for Plan B on BBL


The Speaker of the House of Representatives Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. issued a statement saying that Congress has no Plan B and determined to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) as quoted in a report by Philippine Star yesterday.

This was the Speaker’s response on the recommendation by the Third Party Monitoring Team (TPMT), an international independent body that tracks the progress of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) implementation, for the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to come up with Plan B should the proposed legislation will not be passed by Congress.
 
The CAB is a peace deal signed by the government and the MILF which provides the drafting of the BBL - a measure that will pave way for the establishment of the autonomous Bangsamoro political entity.

On December 22 last year, the TPMT, headed by Alistair MacDonald of European Union, wrote the government and MILF peace panels expressing concerns about the delays in the legislative process and the increasing likelihood that no BBL would be passed during the current Aquino administration.

Absence of quorum was the major cause of the delay in deliberation of BBL in the lower house last year.

However, the lawmakers were able to end the period of interpellation on the proposed legislation on the December 16 session before they adjourned for yuletide break.

On December 8, President Aquino met with the large number of Congressmen at MalacaƱang Palace renewing his call to the lawmakers to support the BBL. MacDonald described the President’s move as encouraging.

When Congress session resumes this month of January, the measure moves on to the period of amendments before it is put to vote for second reading.

The monitoring body expressed further concern on the BBL which may be adopted by Congress and the extent to which the law might be compliant to the CAB as well as its acceptability to the MILF and to the broader Bangsamoro community.

MacDonald said the TPMT’s main recommendation is for the two peace panels to continue and intensify efforts to promote the passage of CAB-compliant BBL.

http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/new/item/775-house-speaker-belmonte-says-no-need-for-plan-b-on-bbl

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.