CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (July 5) – Close to 18 thousand residents of Marawi City and nearby towns joined a prayer rally on Wednesday, July 4, 2018 in Jamiatu Muslim Mindanao (JMM), Matampay ,Marawi City to drum up support for the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) currently at the Bicameral Conference Committee, which is due for passage before President Rodrigo Duterte’s 3rd State of the Nation Address this month.
Drieza Lininding, Chairperson of the Moro Consensus Group said the group humbly seek to petition the members of the Bicameral Conference Committee of the Congress to reconsider the singular wisdom in building a strong autonomy for the Bangsamoro as the only effective and feasible course towards achieving national peace and solidarity.
The new BBL was drafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission and was submitted to congress.
Congress ratified it even as it promised to pass a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro and Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB-FAB) compliant. It however revised the drafted BBL law.
There are fears among the Moro people that the passage of the congress version of BBL will give the region weaker power instead of empowering it.
“The BBL was crafted by the BTC by duly constituted representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Government of the Philippines, by all means and considerations, serves to harmonize, as no other solution tried out in the past, the delicate balance of the need to afford social justice to the Bangsamoro and to uphold the sovereign power of the Philippines state,” Lininding said.
“We view thus with alarm the recent substitution by both Chambers of Congress of the CAB–compliant, BTC–drafted Bangsamoro Basic Law which, combined has drastically reduced the powers of the proposed Bangsamoro,” Lininding added.
The BTC–drafted BBL that sought to correct the infirmities of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has been drastically changed, diluting the BTC–drafted bill.-Lance Baconguis/NewsLine.ph
