BBL uncertainty gives MILF two options on resolving Moro issue

COTABATO CITY -- The imminent legislation by Congress of a Bangsamoro Basic Law different from its original draft raised two options for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on how to pursue its bid for peace in the country’s south.The MILF’s chief negotiator, Muhaquer Iqbal, chair of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), on Thursday said they will neither immediately abandon the peace process, nor wage war if the approval of the draft BBL by Congress is delayed or if the approved law is not a prototype of the proposed bill.Malacañang announced last Tuesday that Congress might not pass the draft BBL before President Benigno Aquino III’s last State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27.Iqbal said a resumption of hostilities is not an option and that they will exhaust all peaceful means of seeking redress if controversies would continue to affect the passage of the draft BBL, now pending in Congress.The Iqbal-led BTC, comprised of seven representatives each from the MILF and the government, drafted together the proposed BBL, the enabling measure for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a new Bangsamoro political entity.A big block of civil society organizations and cause-oriented groups in Central Mindanao petitioned early this week the MILF’s figurehead, Murad Ebrahim, to elevate to the United Nations the quest of Moro people for self-governance via the international right-to-self-determination doctrine.Some CSO leaders had said the UN can help resolve the Moro problem based on documented precedents where it helped address sovereignty and national patrimony issues in countries beset by secessionist or autonomy issues.Iqbal said they are again confronted this time with two options amid the uncertainty on the fate of the draft BBL.Iqbal saida marginalized BBL can be accepted by the MILF even if it can complicate the decades-old Moro issue and make them flunk in fostering peace and progress in the proposed Bangsamoro territory. But who wants to fail in the first place? We want peace to take off now,” he said.He said the other option is for them to reject the measure for good if not tailored-fit to all of the MILF’s agreements with Philippine government.Iqbal said a diluted BBL, one which is not parallel with the context of the October 15, 2013 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and the March 27, 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, is a good recipe” for the rise of more radical groups that would ask for independence rather than self-governance under Philippine sovereignty. There is even a possibility that these groups would rise and tell the MILF it should not have negotiated with government,” Iqbal said.He said the MILF wants a negotiated settlement of the Bangsamoro problem hounding Mindanao since the 1970s. Over and above the situation at the moment is the MILF’s firm position to build peace and progress in the Moro communities through efforts that are civil, far from being bloody and destructive,” Iqbal said.Even the largest and most politically active group in the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), led by former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, had said it will support the implementation of the BBL as long as it is better and more empowered than the ARMM’s charter, Republic Act 9054.The MNLF signed a peace deal with government on Sept. 2, 1996, now subject of a tripartite review --- involving its leaders, representatives from ARMM and Malacañang and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation --- due to misunderstandings on the implementation of some of its key provisions.