Iqbal: Passage of BBL will end future Mamasapano-like clashes

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal has said that once the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) is passed, it will spell the end of any future occurrence of a clash akin to the bloody encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

During the third hearing on the Mamasapano debacle which cost the lives of at least 67 persons on Wednesday, Magdalo party-list Rep. Francis Ashley Acedillo asked Iqbal if there would be an assurance from their side that the said encounter would not happen again once the BBL was passed into law.

“There is a good partnership between the MILF and the government. If the BBL is passed, that partnership will be multiplied,” Iqbal said.

Acedillo then grilled Iqbal on the culture of pintakasi in Mindanao, asking the MILF chief negotiator to explain what happened in Mamasapano where forces of the BIFF (Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters) and MILF colluded to fight elite police commandos.

“In Mamasapano, more than 300 SAF commandos entered the area, but not necessarily all of them, and then suddenly there was fighting because there was a common threat,” he said.

He also explained that MILF and BIFF fighters clashed with the SAF troopers because 70 to 80 percent of combatants and mass supporters live in the area.

“People who are fully armed came to the area. Naturally, the reaction of the people is self-survival.”

“That is the tendency. It was the automatic response of the people who are under siege from outsiders,” Iqbal explained. RC