MILF pledges to pursue peace despite BBL non-passage

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has assured Malacañang that it would continue working with the government in pushing for peace in Mindanao “even beyond the present administration.”

The assurance was given by MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, according to Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. Thursday.

In a statement, Coloma hailed the rebel group, saying  that “since the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro in October 2012, the MILF has demonstrated its capacity for keeping the peace.”

For its part, Malacañang said it “will persevere in its efforts to implement the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which serves as a road map for resolving internal armed conflict in Mindanao,” he added.

The mutual assurances followed news that Congress recessed to give way to the election campaign period without passing the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law or BBL. This means the BBL will have to be refiled when a new Congress is convened after the May elections and go through the legislative mill all over again.

Iqbal earlier appealed to the current legislators to pass the proposed BBL, saying it would stop the “spread of extremism” in Muslim Mindanao.

In a joint letter to Congress, he and  professor  Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, the government’s chief peace negotiator, said “the Bangsamoro government would be able to help moderate Islamic leaders counter the ideology of radicalism being promised by the Islamic State,” which is gaining a foothold in some Muslim areas in the country.

In a statement, Ferrer on Wednesday  blamed the “sheer indifference and chronic absenteeism” of a number of House members for the chamber’s failure to pass the measure.

She said the “lack of quorum almost on a daily basis in the House and the prolonged and repetitive interpellation of oppositors ate up the remaining sessions.”

In the Senate, she said “the intermittent absence of the BBL bill sponsor and the remaining interpellator stalked the deliberation.”

“In all, 40 public hearings and 14 plenary deliberations conducted by the ad hoc committee chaired by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, and 15 public hearings and 14 sessions of plenary interpellations led by local government committee chair Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. amounted to nothing, along with the millions of taxpayers’ money used to finance these drawn-out proceedings,” she said.

However, Ferrer said the government peace panel “will do everything in the remaining time we have to ensure that the infrastructure for implementing the peace accord are fully functional so that the next administration will be in a good position to carry forward the full implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro.”

The MILF has been waging a secessionist war in southern Philippines since the late ’70s.