Getting BBL right more important than passing it on time – Bongbong

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS, GMA News

Published May 13, 2015 8:05pm

ZAMBOANGA CITY - It will be tough to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law before Congress adjourns in June, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who is set to hold a hearing on the bill here on Tuesday, said.

At a press briefing when he arrived in the city on Wednesday, Marcos said that passing the BBL on time is of secondary importance to "getting it right"—that is, making sure that the new autonomous region will address the concerns of all stakeholders.

"If we don't get it right, nothing will happen [and] BBL or not, there will be no peace in Mindanao," Marcos said.

Asked what he meant by getting the BBL right, Marcos said that it should lead to "no more uprisings in Zamboanga, no more bombings kung saan-saan."

A faction of the Moro National Liberation Front laid siege to a part of Zamboanga City in September 2013.

Marcos said he has been holding hearings to hear more "voices on the ground", and has scheduled hearings on the 18th and 25th.

Sulu issue

The BBL seeks to create a Bangsamoro entity that will have broader powers than the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that it is supposed to replace. Sulu is part of the envisioned Bangsamoro core territory.

Marcos has repeatedly said that the MNLF, which signed peace agreements with the government too, should not be left out of the peace process.

He said the BBL is only part of the peace process, a point that the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process has also said in the past.

On Monday, Marcos presided over a hearing in Patikul, Sulu, where representatives of the MNLF and the Sultanate of Sulu said they had been excluded from consultations on the bill.

Some leaders, including Jolo Mayor Hussin Amin, see the BBL as skewed in favor of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Maguindanaons.

The Sultanate of Sulu, through its secretary general Abraham Idjirani, said Sulu should be kept out of the Bangsamoro core territory.

He also suggested creating a separate autonomous region for Sulu.

Although Marcos did not commit to creating that autonomous region, he said that "voices on the ground" and the issues they raise are "very different from the pundits in Manila" and should be heard. — BM, GMA News@gmanews.tv>

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