Join BBL hearings, council urged

A lawmaker is urging members of President Aquino’s newly-formed citizen council to attend hearings in the House of Representatives to give them a “reality check” of the real status of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

A senior member of the minority bloc in the House of Representatives on Sunday proposed to the 75-man ad hoc panel hearing the controversial BBL to invite the council of citizen leaders, who were named by the President to scrutinize the proposed law and conduct a National Peace Summit, to attend the resumption of hearings on the measure in the coming weeks to give them a reality check on its real status.

Isabela Representative Rodolfo Albano III said the 75-member Ad Hoc panel on the BBL led by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez should invite the citizen leaders to one of its hearings this month in order to enlighten them on the legal infirmities and unconstitutional provisions hounding the BBL.

“The council of citizen leaders must be given full, firsthand knowledge on the real status of the BBL in the House before they embark on their mission to bring to the Filipino people the issue of passing the controversial measure,” Albano said in a statement.

Last week, the President named Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., business tycoon Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, former Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See and Malta Howard Dee, and founder of Teach Peace, Build Peace Movement Bai Rohaniza Sumndad-Usman to a peace council, which he hoped could turn the tide against broad public opposition against the BBL, specifically among Mindanao residents, following the fallout from the massacre of 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers by Moro rebels, bandits and private armed groups in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, last Jan. 25.

The Ad Hoc committee is scheduled to resume its hearings on the BBL from April 20 to 30. Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has committed to approve the BBL in the Lower House before Congress adjourned sine die in June.

Albano was hopeful that the National Peace Summit to be led by the citizen leaders would not be used as a “bully pulpit” to railroad the BBL in Congress despite its legal flaws.

Albano said the citizen leaders should be made to understand that Congress does not get carried away with the “hype” that the BBL would solve the peace problem and that its main concern was whether it would pass a legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

“It is imperative that this issue is taken up with the council of citizen leaders so they would know firsthand that the strong opposition in the House to the Palace-MILF draft bill are not political grandstanding stunts at all; but are mainly anchored on the serious flaws and provisions in the draft BBL that are not compliant with and offensive to the Constitution,” Albano said.