House ad hoc panel approves BBL

MANILA — After a bruising three days of per-provision voting and deliberations, the House ad hoc panel on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) voted Wednesday to endorse to plenary the measure which advocates insist offers the best possible hope for ending decades of conflict in Mindanao.

As the working draft in entirety was put to a vote - after the panel members voted on each provision on Monday and Tuesday - 50 members raised their hands in favor; 17 rejected it, and one member abstained.

The entire draft is set to be tackled in plenary at the House of Representatives next week, even as the Senate local government committee was still continuing to hold hearings in certain areas until this week.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda, sought for comment on the development, said: “We would like to thank the House Committee for approving the draft BBL. It brings us closer to transforming Muslim Mindanao from a permanent potential into a reality where peace and prosperity abide.”

PALACE: NO INCENTIVES OFFERED TO LAWMAKERS

The Palace also shot down speculations that lawmakers were offered certain incentives to vote

for the BBL - the rumors that resulted from reports that President Benigno Aquino III had met with select members of the ad hoc panel, including its chairman Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, over the weekend.

Some members of the panel took Rodriguez to task on Monday morning when they received a second working draft - replacing the chairman’s working draft distributed to them last week and which should have been the basis of this week’s vote. They noted that compared to the first, this “Palace-inspired” draft deleted fewer key provisions which lawmakers and legal experts had deemed unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, however, Lacierda said the only promise or incentive given lawmakers by the president is “peace and prosperity in Mindanao,” which the BBL could provide a venue for.

The president believes the BBL is the best chance for changing the way things are done in Mindanao to ensure long-term peace and development, he added.

Lacierda justified Aquino’s move to call his Congress allies to the weekend meeting, saying time was running out for passage of the BBL, especially given the delays caused by the outrage over the January 25 Mamasapano debacle where 44 police commandos died in a firefight with Moro rebels, including the government’s peace partners in BBL, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

There was need, explained Lacierda, to catch up on the lost time in order to provide enough leeway for “capacity building in the Bangsamoro government” as well as preparations for the 2016 elections in the region.

Palace officials also denied that Rodriguez was offered a slot on the LP senatorial slate, which softened his stand on the unconstitutional provisions he wanted deleted earlier.

“It’s very categorical. None whatsoever [was offered],” Lacierda said.