Failure to pass BBL a ‘boon’—Belmonte

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said Congress may have failed to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law but it contributed to the continuing peace process by bringing all sides into the debate over the creation of a new autonomous region.

Congress adjourned on Feb. 3 with the BBL or House Bill No. 5811 still mired in what is termed the period of turno en contra or interpellation, the last step before the bill is put to a vote on second reading. If approved, it would yet be presented to the plenary for third and final approval.

Belmonte said the 51 public hearings, 200 hours of committee level debates and eight months of consultations on the BBL amounted to “time well spent to prove the House’s sincerity” in working for peace in Mindanao.

“The House members ensured that in addressing issues of political and fiscal autonomy, every voice would be heard from the entire political spectrum,” said Belmonte.

Everyone included

Belmonte also said the proceedings were marked with “openness” as nobody was locked out of the deliberation process.

“These lessons will feed into the institutional memory of Congress. It will help us move forward as a nation, as we must, when the 17th Congress convenes in July,” Belmonte said.

The negotiators of the peace agreement, from the side of the government as well as the  secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, however, expressed disappointment that the BBL did not pass in Congress.

The negotiations were facilitated by Malaysia and backed by the powerful Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The Palace, which had lobbied strongly for the passage of the BBL, had hoped a peace settlement ending over 40 years of secessionist war in resource-rich Mindanao would be one of the highlights of President Aquino’s presidency.

 State within state

It was the second negotiated agreement with the MILF to be thumbed down—the first in 2008 when an agreement for redrawing a Bangsamoro homeland negotiated by the Arroyo administration was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Many senators said the new BBL still contained unconstitutional provisions tantamount to creating a state within a state.  Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., chair of the committee on local government, submitted  in August last year a substitute draft of the BBL which reportedly revised 80 percent of the original measure endorsed by Malacañang.

Senate President Franklin Drilon also announced recently that the upper chamber would not be able to take up the BBL.

A new president and Congress will step up in June after the May elections.

The BBL will have to be refiled in the two chambers of the next Congress, and go through the legislative mill all over again.