Jaafar: No BBL, no MILF decommissioning of forces

Posted to the Malaya Business Insight (Jun7): Jaafar: No BBL, no MILF decommissioning of forces

AN official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front yesterday said MILF forces would not be decommissioned if the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, which will establish a new political entity in the South, does not become a law.

“If there is no BBL, the problem remains. How can we decommission our forces when there is no peace in the area?” said MILF vice chairman for political affairs Ghazali Jaafar in a phone interview.

The Senate and the House have passed their versions of the BBL. A bicameral conference committee will meet next month. The target is to come up with the bicameral report for signing of President Duterte on July 23 when Congress resumes session.

Jaafar is also the chairman of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission which was tasked to come up with a draft of the BBL. The passage of the BBL is part of a peace agreement forged by government with the MILF in March 2014.

Jaafar, asked how soon the MILF forces will be decommissioned, said, “It depends on the approval of the BBL. Anyway there is a plan for that already.”

Asked how many MILF forces will be decommissioned, Jaafar said there are “tens of thousands.”

Sought for a comment, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said: “They are right because there is no (ongoing) decommissioning... The decommissioning is anchored on the law that will give them some autonomy.”

“Chairman Jaafar is right in saying there wont be decommissioning if there is no BBL,” he added.

Senate majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, who heads the sub-committee on BBL and the Senate contingent to the bicameral conference committee, said House majority leader Rodolfo Fariñas has agreed to hold a pre-bicameral meeting by the end of next week. The bicameral conference committee proper is set to meet on July 9 to 13.

“In the pre-bicam, we will discuss the procedures how we will proceed on deadlock. We will finish the bicam on the 13th and ratify it (bicam report) on the 23rd in the morning,” he said.

http://www.malaya.com.ph/business-news/news/jaafar-no-bbl-no-milf-decommissioning-forces