MANILA – The Bicameral Conference Committee has approved a measure creating a new Bangsamoro region that will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Legislators will ratify the Bangsamoro Organic Law – which formed the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region – when the third and last regular session of the 17th Congress opens on July 23.
President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sign the measure into law on the same day – when he will also deliver his State of the Nation Address.
The panel started reconciling the disagreeing provisions of House Bill 6475 and Senate Bill 1717 on July 9.
Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, bicam cochairman, said the lawmakers and the Bangsamoro Transition Commission approved the measure Wednesday evening after “probably one of the longest bicams.”
“We have six days of marathon hearings, 13 hours a day to reconcile the disagreeing provisions,” he said.
Once signed by Duterte the Bangsamoro Organic Law will serve as the enabling law of the 2014 peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front – the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro that aims to grant greater autonomy to the Bangsamoro region.
“This law will address the aspirations of our brothers and sisters in the Bangsamoro for self-governance, additional funding for the block grants, so they’ll be able to chart now their own path for social services, for health, for education,” said Zubiri.
“They can now also convince the extremist, alam mo iyong mga nag-iisip namang gugulo doon, sila na mismo ang MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) and MILF ngayon ay partners na ng gobyerno in convincing their populations not to join the extremism, not to join extremist groups because there is a new dawn in Bangsamoro region,” he added.
House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, bicam cochairman, said the law will stand the test of constitutionality.
“We were very careful. Precisely we had several problems along the way because we could not grant everything they want. In fairness to them, they accepted everything,” Fariñas said.
“The previous administration tried but failed,” he added. “The Duterte administration was able to reach this achievement in one year.”
Among the key provisions of the BBL are:
* freedom to exercise religion under the Bangsamoro government
* enumeration of the powers to be devolved to the Bangsamoro government instead of listing down the reserved and concurrent powers of the national and local government
* inland bodies of water in the Bangsamoro region will be co-managed by the regional government and the national government while those not used to produce energy will be under the control of the Bangsamoro regional government
* former MNLF and MILF fighters will be free to join the police force
* six municipalities of Lanao del Norte and 39 barangays of North Cotabato could vote to join the Bangsamoro territory in a referendum to be conducted on the mother territory of the areas involved
Duterte certified the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law as urgent on May 29. The following day both houses of Congress approved their respective bills. (With Adrian Stewart Co/PN)
