Solons decry railroading of Malacanang’s BBL draft

The voting of the House ad hoc committee on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law on Monday was off to a fiery start as some lawmakers accused the leaders of the committee of railroading a draft bill which allegedly came from Malacañang.

During his preliminary remarks, House ad hoc committee chairman and Cagayan de Oro City second district representative Rufus Rodriguez said that he decided to have a “chairman and vice chairpersons’ working draft” to accommodate the proposed amendments of the members of the committee.

“From the time we have distributed my working draft, I met on several occasions with the vice chairpersons of this ad hoc committee and we have decided to come up with the chairman and vice chairperson’s working draft for the submission and consideration of this honorable body,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said that the chairman and vice chairperson’s working draft was distributed to the members of the ad hoc committee Monday morning.

Misamis Occidental second district representative Henry Oaminal stated a motion that the chairman and vice chairperson’s working draft will be adopted and will be the basis for voting on the proposed measure subject to amendments.

This was met with opposition by various lawmakers.

Zamboanga City first district representative Celso Lobregat said that the version that should be discussed in the committee is the consolidated version of the bill and not the working draft proposed Rodriguez and the house committee vice chairpersons.

“If you say that this is the chair’s draft, the committee did not authorize the chairman or the vice chairman to act as a technical working group . We had 48 committee hearings. Why are you now changing the rules? This is uncalled for. This is railroading,” Lobregat said.

Meanwhile, Bayan Muna party-list representative Neri Colmenares insinuated that the chairman and vice chairperson’s draft is a product of an alleged technical working group (TWG) by the Palace.

”I don’t see in the ground rules any provision that says that a working draft will be created by a TWG. In fact from the reports this morning in the papers, the TWG created supposedly by this committee is the TWG of Malacanang,” Colmenares said.

“We deny that and to the way that it was said. There is no truth to that,” Rodriguez countered.

Colmenares said that by adopting the “working draft” of the committee chairperson and vice chairpersons, the body is disregarding the consolidated version which was the result of 48 hearings.

“Bakit tayo biglang nagmamadali ngayon? (Why are we in a hurry?) In the first place, it is not the fault of the minority to stall the proceedings. I never remembered the rules a provision that a certain person or a certain group of persons can propose a working draft for the committee,” the House deputy minority leader said.

Before the voting on the ground rules, the committee shot down the motion of Lobregat to force the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to return all firearms and surrender all members involved in the botched counterterrorist operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao which killed at least 67 people.

Meeting in Malacañang

Before the start of the voting, Rodriguez admitted that he and other House leaders met with President Aquino to discuss the proposed law.

Saying that the meeting with Aquino was merely a dialogue, Rodriguez denied that the chairman’s draft was the handiwork of Malacanang.

“It was a dialogue for us to tell the President that these are our proposed amendments. It was an exchange of ideas,” Rodriguez was quoted as saying.

Out of 75 House ad hoc panel members, 63 are present on Monday’s voting on the BBL.

The House ad hoc committee is voting on the the proposed measure per section. As of posting time, the preamble and Article I of the chairman’s draft of the BBL was approved by the committee.