Bangsamoro autonomy bill ready for plenary debates Wednesday
THE controversial bill creating a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region hurdled the House of Representatives’ ways and means, and appropriations committees in time for its presentation to the plenary on Wednesday (May 27).
In a preview of the upcoming plenary debates, lawmakers continued to heatedly debate the Bangsamoro bill before the House committees on ways and means and on appropriations on Tuesday.
But after the day-long hearings that further discussed in detail provisions on taxation powers, sharing in taxes and sources of funding of the proposed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, the bill was approved with minor tweaking.
The ways and means committee chaired by Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo took a little under four hours in the morning before it approved the bill, while the committee on appropriations chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab started at 2 p.m. and was expected to finish the hearing within the day.
As in the three-day marathon hearings held last week by a special House committee on the Bangsamoro law, battle lines were again drawn between administration lawmakers supportive of the bill and a few lawmakers critical of the bill.
At the end of the day, the two committees passed almost unchanged the Bangsamoro bill that the special committee passed with a vote of 50 in favor, 17 against and one abstention.
Cagayan De Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chair of the Bangsamoro special committee, admitted that the taxation provisions his committee passed had to be tweaked since they were open to misinterpretation.
He accepted only four minor amendments in the taxation section of the law, only one of which came from among the several posed by Zamboanga City Rep. Celso Lobregat, which clarified that the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region could only grant investors exemptions of the taxes it would be allowed to impose.
The other amendments deleted the lump sum tax incentives for small and medium enterprises (Rodriguez said this would be up to the regional Board of Investments); included the sale of shares of stock on the assets covered by capital gains tax by the Baangsamoro Autonomous Region; and required corporations with operations in the Bangsamoro region to pay income taxes there even if they had their main office is in Metro Manila.
The tax income sharing was unchanged, where 75 per cent of national government taxes collected in the Bangsamoro area would go to the Bangsamoro authority and 25 per cent would go to the national government.
But for the first 10 years, 100 per cent of national government taxes collected in the area will go to the Bangsamoro authority.
The other funding sources for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region include an annual block grant, a special development fund of P17 billion over six years; a P1 billion transition fund and 70-30 (in favor of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region) sharing in mineral exploration and 50-50 sharing on fossil oil.
The approval by the committee on ways and means did not go through a vote anymore since some of the 24 lawmakers present would come and go to attend other simultaneous hearings.
The bill was approved the second time that committee vice-chair Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu moved for approval.
The first time he moved for approval, Davao Oriental Rep. Thelma Almario, one of the law’s critics, pointed out that the proposed amendments have not even been read out.
After the ways and means committee wrapped up its hearing, most of legislators moved to the committee on appropriations hearing.
Rodriguez said he would deliver the sponsorship speech on Wednesday to officially start the plenary deliberations.
But the debates will not start until next Monday, June 1.
The House is working along Malacañang’s timetable to pass the law before Congress adjourns on June 11 in the hope that a final law crafted with the Senate will be approved when Congress resumes on July 27 when the President Aquino delivers his last State of the Nation Address.
The proposed Bangsamoro basic law will serve as the cornerstone of a political settlement with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). SFM/ABC
