House approves BBL on third and final reading
The House of Representatives unanimously approved on third and final reading the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) on Wednesday, as earlier promised by House leaders.
The substitute bill for House Bill 6475, which seeks to abolish the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), was approved on second reading and consequently approved on final reading after President Rodrigo Duterte certified it as urgent.
The result of the voting was 227-11 with two abstentions.
Those who voted no to BBL were Makabayan opposition bloc Representatives Arlene Brosas, Ariel Casilao, France Castro, Emmi de Jesus, Sarah Elago, Antonio Tinio, and Carlos Zarate, as well as Representatives Edcel Lagman, Maximo Rodriguez, Mannix Dalipe, and Isagani Amatong.
Those who abstained were Representatives Celso Lobregat and Abdullah Dimaporo.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque earlier said President Duterte would sign the BBL once both chambers of Congress have reconciled and finalized a unified version of the proposed measure at the bicameral conference committee during the break.
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The still unnumbered substitute bill contained the amendments which lawmakers would tackle at the bicameral conference committee, but Lobregat, in an interview prior the plenary voting, bared some of these changes.
Lobregat said there would only be one plebiscite which would be held between 90 and 120 days upon the BBL’s effectivity. This is contrary to HB 6475’s original version mandating a plebiscite every five years for a period of 25 years after the creation of the Bangsamoro.
The Commission on Elections will still manage the said plebiscite, he added.
The lawmaker said uniformed services in the Bangsamoro would still be under the Philippine National Police, and independent constitutional bodies such as the Commission on Audit would still be under the national government.
He also mentioned that the Bangsamoro’s block grant would be reduced from 6 percent to 5 percent of the national revenue from the collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Bureau of Customs.
The block grant is the automatically-appropriated annual budget or development fund for the Bangsamoro.
