Ferrer renews call to lawmakers to pass BBL

MANILA – In anticipation of tomorrow’s resumption of Congress, Government of the Philippines chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer once again appealed to legislators to work towards the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which President Benigno Simeon Aquino III highlighted as his top legislative priority in his last face-to-face guesting with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) last week. Prior to recess, our Congress has been plagued by a lack of quorum and absenteeism. I call on our lawmakers, under the leadership of House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and Senate President Franklin Drilon, to collectively work together in passing this landmark legislation,” Ferrer said. Passing the basic law that will establish the Bangsamoro region this Congress will allow the next president of the Republic and the next Congress to focus on other measures and bills. Let us act with wisdom and with full appreciation of the pressing and immediate need to correct this historical disunity,” the chief negotiator urged.After the Office of the President has officially transmitted to both Houses of Congress the original draft of the BBL last year, the two chambers have conducted separate public hearings which were headed by Cagayan de Oro City Representative Rufus B. Rodriguez, the chairman of the House ad hoc committee on the BBL and Senator Ferdinand Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., the head of the Senate committee on local government. The hearings culminated in the endorsement of substitute bills known as the Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Regions (BLBAR). It is these substitute bills, and not the original draft, that are being tackled at the plenary level.However, deliberations at the House of Representatives have been slowed down due to the lack of quorum and warm bodies on the plenary floor while the Senate has encountered the same due to Senator Marcos being absent on numerous occasions. I reiterate the appeal of the GPH negotiating panel, of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), and the rest of the proponents of the Bangsamoro peace process to our lawmakers to be present in the remaining sessions of Congress and finish what they've began,” said Ferrer. MILF ready to continue decommissioning process Ferrer also noted that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is ready to undertake the continued decommissioning process of its weapons and combatants upon the passage of the basic law. The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), signed between the Philippine government and the MILF, dictates that the decommissioning process will be done gradually and in sync with identified milestones in the legislative timetable of the BBL. Accordingly, the next phase of decommissioning which will involve 30% of the MILF’s combatants and weapons will occur after the passage of the BBL and before its ratification through a plebiscite. As soon as the law is passed, thousands of MILF weapons and combatants will be decommissioned. Our mechanisms are ready to undertake this, especially the IDB (Independent Decommissioning Body) and the Joint Task Force on Decommissioned Combatants and Their Communities, Ferrer said. The IDB was established by the GPH and MILF negotiating panels to oversee the decommissioning of MILF weaponry and combatants. The Task Force ensures the proper documentation and monitoring of decommissioned combatants. BBL passage a showcase for APEC meet The chief negotiator stressed that passing the BBL will prove to the world that the Philippines, as one nation, has come a long way from the initial attempt of the Republic in 1957 to integrate Muslim Filipinos into mainstream society. Sixty years have passed since we passed the law that created the Commission on National Integration. It has been, for lack of a better term, a failure as evidenced by the persistent disparity between the socio-economic and political footing of Muslim Filipinos and other ethno-linguistic groups and the mainstream Filipino. It is high time we show the wisdom we’ve acquired throughout the decades by passing a new law that provides for meaningful political and fiscal autonomy for the Bangsamoro within the framework of the Republic of the Philippines,” explained Ferrer.In 1954, the Philippine congress established a special committee to study the economic effects of the Christian migration on Muslim Filipinos and indigenous peoples to the Philippine south. The committee recommended the creation of the Commission on National Integration to to foster, accelerate and accomplish by all adequate means and in a systematic, rapid and complete manner the moral, material, economic, social and political advancement of the Non-Christian Filipinos” and to render real, complete and permanent the integration of all… into the body politic.”Indigenous peoples including Muslim Filipino regarded the commission with suspicion and believed that its true objective was the destruction of their identity under the guise of national integration. The commission, aside from providing scholarships to Muslim students, achieved little until it was abolished in 1975. In the late 1960s, moreover, violence erupted and the Marcos government waged war against the Moro liberation front. One of the reasons cited by then President Ferdinand Marcos for declaring martial law was the Moro insurgency, Ferrer recalled.This consequently justified the militarization in the Muslim areas leading to thousands of deaths and untold suffering to community women, men and children as well as to Filipino foot soldiers who merely obeyed orders.Focusing on the APEC, Ferrer commented that the Philippines should send a clear signal to our neighbors that we can achieve peace and stability in Mindanao on our own accord. She noted how the Bangsamoro peace process had become a model solution for other countries in conflict such as Thailand and Myanmar. Nothing can be taken away from all our gains in the peace process with the Moro fronts in Mindanao. We have proven to the world that we can put aside our differences, sit down, and actually attempt to reach consensus and compromise on how to effectively put armed conflict behind us.” All of those will be for naught, however, if we don’t see through this process that will institutionalize those gains and entrench in our democratic systems the genuine autonomy of the Bangsamoro people which has been guaranteed by the 1987 Philippine Constitution,” added Ferrer.Founded in 1989, the APEC is an international organization seeking to promote economic prosperity and partnerships among its 21 member countries namely Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, People’s Republic of China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States of America, and Vietnam. For 2015, the country is hosting the year-long APEC meetings which will culminate with the APEC Economic Leaders’ forum on 18-19 November.