Bicam agrees to specify powers of Bangsamoro gov’t — Drilon

A subcommittee of the Congress panel on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) has agreed to specify the powers of the Bangsamoro government and struck down the reserved and concurrent powers of the national and local government to avoid confusion, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said on Wednesday.

Drilon, in an interview at the sidelines of the BBL bicameral meetings in Pasig City, said the Senate contingent was able to convince the House contingent to adopt Senate’s version of the provision.

“What we did was to enumerate the powers of the Bangsamoro government. We deleted the reserved powers, so called, because the Constitution says what is not provided for in the Constitution belongs to the national government in terms of power,” Drilon, a member of the bicam panel and leader of the Senate contingent, explained.

The subcommittee also decided to forgo the concurrent powers to avoid confusion, he added.

“Concurrent means it belongs to the two agencies, national and local or the autonomous region. Does it mean that the one who will first assume this power will do so to the exclusion of other? Number 2, suppose the national government and the Bangsamoro will exercise it at the same time, who will prevail?” he asked.

“So at the end of the day it will only cause confusion so I took the position which the Senate panel adopted that let us discuss what power should be devolved to the autonomous region rather than debate on reserve and concurrent powers for the reason that, number 1 it is unconstitutional, number 2, it will simply cause confusion in the process of making decision,” he continued.

In the Senate’s version of the BBL, the provisions on the reserved, concurrent, and exclusive powers of the Bangsamoro government and the provisions on its power to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation and subpoena powers were deleted. These were retained in the House version.

READ: Zubiri: Bicam agrees in 3 crucial BBL provision