Senate panel to resume BBL deliberations on April 13
MANILA, Philippines — After suspending the hearings on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) following the January 25 Mamasapano incident, the Senate committee on local government is now ready to resume its deliberations on April 13, 2015.
“I have scheduled the hearing April 13 to specifically look at the ceasefire mechanisms in case of encounters like what happened in Mamasapano,” the committee chairman, Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., said in a press conference on Monday.
Marcos noted that during the Mamasapano incident where 44 elite policemen were killed, the ceasefire between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) took effect only after 11 hours.
“That’s eleven hours. I really want to reduce that 11 hours, if that happens again, to 11 minutes,” he said.
“But to proceed on that hearing on that subject, I really need to see the MILF report , which they mysteriously sent to Malaysia instead of the Philippines. Up until now I could not understand,” the senator added.
He was referring to the MILF report on its own investigation on the incident, which it sent to Malaysia, facilitator of the peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro rebels.
“There’s no point on my having a hearing if we don’t know what happened to the MILF side…We can’t find out what went wrong if there’s no MILF report…” said Marcos.
“I don’t see a good reason why they won’t give it to us…? I don’t know what the reasons are behind,” he further said.
Marcos said he would write the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, the Department of Justice, the MILF and the Malaysian team to get a copy of the said report.
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