Quorum lack on BBL bill bothers Belmonte
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Sunday admitted that he was concerned about low attendance numbers impeding the passage of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) at the House of Representatives.
The 291-member chamber is in the middle of the period of interpellation of the draft BBL, centerpiece of a peace agreement between the Aquino administration and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that would create a substate to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Work on the proposed Bangsamoro charter was stalled following the massacre of 44 police commandos on a mission on Jan. 25 to take out international terrorists in an MILF-controlled territory in Mamasapano, Maguindanao province, which sparked national outrage.
The lack of a quorum in past weeks has hampered the progress of the debates, and only a few lawmakers out of more than 20 remaining on the list of interpellators have been able to ask questions to its defenders led by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chair of the BBL panel.
House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II admitted last week that a number of lawmakers opposed to the proposed BBL were “purposely absenting” themselves possibly to derail the approval of the measure.
Belmonte, however, said he remained optimistic that the House would be able to pass the draft BBL before the end of September. Congress leaders want to pass the bill before the last quarter, when priority would be given to the 2016 national budget.
Still confident
“Yes, it’s bothersome, but I’m still confident of its passage,” he said in a text message.
Asked what the House leadership would do to deal with the quorum problem, Belmonte said: “We have to do our best to talk to the leaders [of the majority coalition].”
In a statement on Saturday, Rodriguez acknowledged the difficulty of the task ahead in both the House and the Senate.
“There are a lot of balancing acts to be done to ensure that the [proposed BBL] remains true both to the genuine aspirations of the Bangsamoro for self-determination and the 1987 Philippine Constitution,” he said.
Rodriguez also congratulated Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for completing the Senate version of the proposed BBL, bearing the same title as the House version, which refers to the BBL as the “Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region” (BLBAR).
“The House and Senate versions of the BLBAR carry significant differences,” Rodriguez said.
Among these are the Senate’s removal of the bill’s preamble as well as the deletion of the P17-billion Special Development Fund for speeding up infrastructure development in the Bangsamoro during its first five years, he said.
‘Weakened system’
Rodriguez said that based on “early reviews of the Senate version,” it seemed to be a “weakened Bangsamoro parliamentary system of government.”
But he added that differences between the two versions were to be expected.
“This only proves that we have a working and healthy democracy. As legislators with independent minds, different takes on the bill are to be expected,” he said.
The Senate and the House will try to reconcile the two versions in conference once both chambers have passed the bill on third reading.
Rodriguez said the differences could be ironed out on the conference committee.
“That is the beauty of our democratic system. You have independent minds working on the same thing who will eventually compare notes, as they say, and reach a consensus,” he said.
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