President Benigno Aquino III AFP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–President Aquino met Thursday with members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC)—the body that drafted the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL)—in a move seen as part of the government’s effort to resolve issues created by Malacañang’s supposed watering down of the draft bill.
The meeting in the Palace lasted four hours and was “cordial,” a well-placed source told the Inquirer.
“[The President] offered friendly alternatives to some items he saw as possibly problematic. They also agreed that the two panels must meet again and continue harmonizing the BBL proposal,” the source said.
The Inquirer source was privy to the peace negotiations but declined to be identified for lack of authority to speak to the media.
MILF chief negotiator and BTC chair Mohagher Iqbal, however, was not at the meeting.
Earlier, Iqbal said the Palace review team had “diluted” the draft BBL, turning the proposed measure that would give the Bangsamoro people autonomy into a lesser law than Republic Act No. 9054 which created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Present at the meeting for the government were peace panel members presidential peace adviser Secretary Teresita Deles, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and presidential legal counsel Alfredo Caguioa, among others.
Deles, through Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, said a date for a third meeting between President Aquino and MILF Chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim had yet to be finalized.
Waiting for Murad
“We are still waiting on when this will take place based on [a date] that would be agreed upon by the two parties,” said Coloma in a press briefing, quoting Deles.
The meeting between Aquino and Murad appeared to be imperative in light of the problems over the draft bill.
In an interview Tuesday, Iqbal told the Inquirer that “both sides” were indeed considering a meeting between their two principals.
“But our view, our approach is that we [panels] would go through [the draft bill] and settle the issues. The most difficult issues, the clear and distinct ones, will be left to the principals to tackle… Of course, we cannot ask them to go over every provision. The issues [presented to them] must be clear for them to reach a decision point,” Iqbal said in Filipino.
At the briefing, Coloma said the public had seen that the two previous meetings between the President and Murad had been fruitful.
“We have witnessed the good results of their previous meetings and we are hoping this would be the same result of their [third] meeting,” Coloma said in Filipino.
Aquino’s and Murad’s first meeting in Tokyo in August 2011 paved the way for renewed talks between the government and the MILF and led to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) a year later.
Blueprint for peace
The FAB became the blueprint for the comprehensive peace agreement that was signed in March.
In the two leaders’ meeting in Hiroshima last June, Murad raised with Aquino the MILF’s concerns over the proposed revisions the Malacanang review team had made on the draft BBL.