Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—President Benigno Aquino III appears ready to transmit to Congress early this week the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) aimed at establishing lasting peace in Central Mindanao.
Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, over government-run Radyo ng Bayan, on Saturday said the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp) may have some “good news” soon but he declined to give specifics.
The Inquirer learned Malacañang was preparing for a formal turnover of the draft law—a priority bill of Mr. Aquino’s—to Congress tentatively on Wednesday.
Professor Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), however, said “nothing is definite yet.”
In a text message, Iqbal told the Inquirer the BBL “is still subject to final touches.”
The Inquirer tried but failed to get confirmation of the turnover from Secretary Teresita Deles, the presidential adviser on the peace process, and chief government negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer.
The Inquirer also learned the members of the Bangsamoro Transition Committee (BTC) had yet to affix their signatures to the draft BBL. Iqbal chairs the BTC.
Earlier, both the government and the MILF expressed confidence the proposed Bangsamoro law would be completed and finally submitted to Congress in the first week of September.
Deles had also said the BBL would be submitted to Congress before President Aquino leaves on his official visits to Europe and the United States on Sept. 13.
The government and the MILF are both racing against time to have the BBL approved by Congress. The law would set in motion the establishment of the new Bangsamoro autonomous region, the concrete result of the peace agreement that would end the decades-long war in Central Mindanao.
A plebiscite would still have to be held though to determine which provinces would become part of the new Bangsamoro autonomous region that would replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which was established under the government peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front in 1996.
President Aquino has said he wants the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, or the interim ministerial government, to have at least a year and a half to fulfill its mandate of overseeing the establishment of the new autonomous region.
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