MILF: Don’t set conditions

Moro Islamic Liberation Front chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

MANILA, Philippines–“We need to respect each other. When you make demands, you are no longer negotiating. You are dictating.”

This was the reaction Tuesday of Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez setting conditions for the approval of the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

Iqbal welcomed statements by Senate President Franklin Drilon and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Monday that the BBL could be approved by June and that Congress would respect agreements with the MILF.

But he warned in a phone interview with the Inquirer that “if the BBL is watered down, you will not be solving the problem.”

“Our relationship is based on the documents we signed,” Iqbal said, stressing that the many agreements have set protocols on how the parties would deal with one another.

Based on the signed agreements, Iqbal said, the MILF’s relationship with the government is “political and not legal.” Iqbal reminded lawmakers that the MILF remained a revolutionary group until the full realization of the peace agreement signed almost a year ago.

Rodriguez, chair of the House ad hoc committee on the BBL, said on Monday that the passage of the measure seeking to create a substate in Mindanao would depend on the surrender of firearms seized by Moro fighters during the massacre of 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos in Mamasapano on Jan. 25.

He also said the MILF should surrender its fighters involved in the slaughter of the SAF troopers and give up Filipino terrorist Basit Usman, who escaped the SAF raid in Maguindanao province.

P75B ‘pork barrel’

On Tuesday, Rodriguez and two other lawmakers—Representatives Celso Lobregat of Zamboanga province and Karlo Nograles of Davao province—said that the P75 billion proposed for the Bangsamoro entity was nothing but pork barrel funds that had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

“There is no earmarking of projects; only the Bangsamoro parliament would decide how the funds would be used; and the funds would only be subject to post audit. This is very dangerous,” Rodriguez said in a phone interview.

“We will make sure that we will have control on how and where these funds would be spent, such as education and infrastructure,” he added.

Must be audited by COA

Rodriguez said that Congress would not agree to exempt the Bangsamoro substate from the Commission on Audit (COA) not only because it was unconstitutional but because it would leave massive government funds vulnerable to abuse.

Lobregat said that being “a lump-sum fund” not subject to the scrutiny of Congress, the P75-billion allocation would practically be a massive pork barrel fund for the 60-member Bangsamoro parliament which would decide how to spend these funds.

Lobregat noted that the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) or the share of provinces, cities, towns and barangays (villages) from national tax revenues was subject to spending guidelines imposed by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on where and how much to spend.

In contrast, Lobregat said that the Bangsamoro lump sum was not covered by the DBM.

Nograles said that giving that much money to parliament would give incentive to adjacent localities to exercise their right to join the Bangsamoro through the opt-in provisions which required as little as 10 percent of the population to initiate a plebiscite.

“Will the Bangsamoro agree to be audited by COA or would they insist on having their own audit body? What sort of coordination would have to be made before the Bangsamoro would allow COA to look into its books?” Nograles asked at the weekly “Ugnayan sa Batasan” forum.

‘We can’t rush’

Passing a good version of the BBL is a more pressing concern than meeting other people’s timetables, according to Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who heads the Senate committee hearing the bill.

Marcos plans to hold hearings on the proposed law even when Congress is on recess, but he said that he would first want to have the reports on investigations into the Mamasapano carnage by various agencies, including the Philippine National Police board of inquiry, the Senate and the MILF.

According to Marcos, the deliberations on the draft BBL could not be separated from the Mamasapano incident, because it brought up many issues covered by the proposed legislation.

“You can’t rush this. This is very important. We have to get it right, because if not, if the law is not good, it would just create trouble,” Marcos told reporters in an ambush interview.

But he also said the June deadline agreed on by Senate and House of Representatives leaders was “useful” and he would do his best to meet this.

Congress will go on a Lenten break starting March 20 and will resume sessions on May 4.

Legal and equitable

Sen. Grace Poe said that more than expediting the process of passing the proposed BBL, the Senate must ensure that the bill approved would be “constitutional and equitable.”

“We shouldn’t just rush it for the sake of passing the BBL, just to say we achieved something, right? The accomplishment of this will last many lifetimes, it’s a legacy that we should not really waste just for the sake of political expediency,” Poe told reporters.

Drilon, in an interview over ANC, said the standards to be used in measuring the BBL should be different from that used for the Mamasapano incident.

“The proposed BBL must strictly adhere and be consistent with the Constitution. Otherwise, we don’t see how it will pass with unconstitutional provisions. That is the standard we will use. It is different from the Mamasapano incident, which calls for a review of certain policies—who is at fault at what has transpired,” Drilon said.

Malacañang said Tuesday that communication and dialogue on the draft BBL were important.

No breakaway entity

“It is good to disclose or to surface all our apprehensions, the questions. And when these are disclosed and they are addressed and discussed, there will be clarity instead of just sticking to an inflexible position. All the concerns should be discussed as part of the democratic dialogue,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr.

Coloma sought to allay fears that the BBL would create a “breakaway” security force under the MILF.

“No one’s thinking of having some sort of a breakaway entity here,” he said in Filipino.

“All government agencies or bodies that will be established…will be included in our national framework, and there is no intention to separate them or turn them into ‘breakaway’ bodies,” he added, citing the proposed auditing and civil service bodies within the Bangsamoro.–With a report from Christian V. Esguerra

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