Basilan peace stakeholders commit support for BOL

BASILAN --- Clerics unanimously endorsed the Bangsamoro Organic Law in a gathering Sunday in a barangay where no fewer than a hundred perished in bloody rebel-military clashes in recent years.The activity in Barangay Guinanta in Al-Barka town in Basilan, a joint initiative of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the present administration of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and local peace advocacy groups, was meant to disseminate the intricacies of the BOL.The BOL shall be subjected to a plebiscite in the autonomous region on January 21, an exercise that would seal its fate.The Commission on Elections shall also administer the exercise in Isabela City in Basilan and in several other towns in Lanao del Norte and in North Cotabato on February 6.The chairperson of the MILF’s peace implementing panel, Muhaquer Iqbal, also a member of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, the now outgoing Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Gerry Salapuddin, chairman of the Southern Philippines Development Authority, took turns explaining to more than 2,000 Islamic theologians from across Basilan and from the cities of Lamitan and Isabela the benefits of the BOL during Sunday’s gathering in Barangay Guinanta.The dialogue was supported by Christian local officials in Lamitan City, whose mayor, Rose Furigay, and spouse, Vice Mayor Roderick, are staunch endorsers of the BOL too.The BOL, also known as Republic Act 11054, is the enabling measure for the replacement of ARMM with an MILF-led Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM.The BOL, which the bicameral committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate approved last July, was premised on two peace compacts between Malacañang and the MILF --- the 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro. No doubt the BARMM shall be better than ARMM. It will have yearly grants for peace and development programs to be released by the national government directly to its coffer without so much haggling the way we do in the ARMM each year, Hataman told participants to the dialogue.Hataman’s second term as ARMM chief executive will end on June 30, 2019.Hataman said he and members of his regional cabinet are ready to facilitate a transition from ARMM to an MILF-led BARMM once the BOL is ratified. We can step down without any problem if its implementation will cut our term of office short, Hataman said.In a message, Salapuddin, thrice wounded in encounters with the military whilechairman of the Basilan Revolutionary Committee of the Moro National Liberation Front during the 1970s, also called on Basilan residents to cast an affirmative vote during the January 21 plebiscite.Salapuddin has long been asserting that the BOL will address the now five-decade Moro issue hounding the country’s south.Organizers of Sunday’s forum in Al-Barka said participating officials from ARMM’s Darul Iftah (House of Opinions), comprised of moderate Islamic preachers who studied in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and in Northern Africa, and their followers have promised to vote in favor of the BOL during the January 21 plebiscite.The same pro-BOL speakers also presided over a separate forum the same day in Isabela City, the former capital of Basilan.The Comelec shall administer a separate plebiscite on February 6 in Isabela City to determine if voters there are amenable to the inclusion of their barangays in the proposed BARMM core territory.Lamitan City Vice Mayor Furigay, a devout Christian, announced in Cotabato City last December 19 that he and his wife, first elected mayor in 2013, and their constituents are for the BOL too.Besides the Furigay couple, the non-Muslim mayor of Upi town in Maguindanao, Ramon Piang, a former principal of a Catholic school in the municipality, has also been campaigning for BOL’s ratification.While in Barangay Guinanta, Iqbal expressed gratitude to Salapuddin, to Hataman and the provincial government of Basilan for helping facilitate the dialogues on the importance of the BOL.Iqbal said credit also has to go to Mayor Darusalam Lajid of Al-Barka and units of the MILF in the municipality for helping push Sunday’s activity forward.Barangay Guinanta has barely bounced back from hostilities between government forces and Moro rebels in recent years.The communities there have just been reestablished via extensive joint socio-economic and security interventions by the ARMM government, the police and the Western Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.Al-Barka first hit the news after the 2007 clash in Barangay Guinanta between MILF forces, backed by sympathetic Yakan villagers, and servicemen of the Philippine Marine Corps.More than 20 perished in the incident, 14 of them Marines whom rebels beheaded after divesting them of their firearms and ammunition.Four years later, 19 Army Special Forces personnel were killed in a nine-hour running gunfight with MILF gunmen led by Dan Laksaw Asnawi in a nearby barangay also in Al-Barka.The encounter erupted when SF combatants dispatched to check the reported presence in the area of foreigners, kidnapped outside of the province by Abu Sayyaf bandits, unconsciously intruded into a government-recognized MILF enclave without prior coordination.Iqbal said the BARMM entity, once in place, will see to it that all security issues in its core territory are addressed via consensus-building among stakeholders to the Mindanao peace process --- the local Muslim, Christian and Lumad sectors.