BBL may hit dead end at House

The proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) appears headed for the graveyard in the House of Representatives.

Congressmen have only three more session days this week – from today up to Wednesday – to tackle the draft law that would create a new autonomous Bangsamoro region in Muslim Mindanao before starting plenary debates on the proposed P3-trillion 2016 national budget next Monday.

Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II told The STAR over the weekend that it would be impossible for the House to finish what it has to do with the proposed BBL in three session days.

“First, we have to wrap up floor debates. Then we have to tackle the amendments, a process that also entails debates. Then comes voting on second reading. We cannot finish all that in three days, even if we are able to muster quorum,” he said.

He said one determined opponent of the draft BBL alone could consume the remaining three sessions devoted to the bill to grill Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, principal sponsor of the proposed law.

“That is the reality of the situation we are facing. I do not want to give false hopes about this controversial bill,” he said.

He added that the House has to give priority to the approval of the proposed 2016 budget.

“That means that once we start plenary consideration of the budget on Sept. 28, we can no longer tackle other measures until the budget bill is approved before the Oct. 10 adjournment,” Gonzales stressed.

Rodriguez conceded that all the remaining work that has to be done on the proposed BBL could not be done this week.

“But we, the authors of the bill, are not giving up for the sake of peace in Mindanao. We are hoping that we could finish the floor debates before we take up the budget so that we could start tackling the amendments when we resume session on Nov. 3,” he said.

He said what could derail completion of the debates this week would be lack of quorum.

“So we are calling for enough attendance so we could wrap up the discussions,” he said.

He added that the resumption of the session from Nov. 3 to Dec. 18 could still be a window for debating and approving amendments and voting on the proposed BBL.

The House and the Senate are having their first session break from Oct. 10 to Nov. 2 to allow the House to print its second-reading version of the proposed budget and lawmakers to file their certificates of candidacy (COCs) for the 2016 elections on Oct. 12-16.