Too early to certify BBL bill urgent–Palace

MALACAÑANG said it was premature for President Aquino to certify the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) as urgent, since it has yet to be passed with eight months left in the Aquino administration.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said the bill “is still in the period of interpellation” in both chambers of Congress.

The President certifies a proposed law as urgent when it is in the second-reading stage, he said.

“According to legislative rules, the President only has the power to declare a bill as urgent once it has passed on first reading,” the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp) explained in a statement.

“Certifying a bill as urgent would mean collapsing the second and the third readings into one. As it stands now, the BBL has yet to pass the first reading in both houses of Congress,” the Opapp said.

Mr. Aquino has identified the BBL, which seeks to create a new autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao in line with the peace agreement that the government signed with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), among his priority legislative measures.

The House of Representatives and the Senate failed to approve the BBL during their plenary sessions between July and October. Congress leaders have set Dec. 16 as their new self-imposed deadline. Congress will resume sessions in November.

MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said that with or without the BBL, the MILF would “remain on the course of peace.”

Iqbal said the peace negotiators from both sides are hoping that House members would reinsert the 28 provisions that were deleted from the BBL when plenary debates resume next month, specifi- cally during the period of amendments or after the plenary debates and the voting on second reading.

He said the MILF and the rest of the government peace panel would insist on approving the original BBL.