Deles: Palace to submit draft Bangsamoro Law soon

COTABATO CITY, Philippines --- Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles is  confident Malacañang  would soon submit the draft Basic Bangsamoro Law (BBL) to the House of Representatives for enactment.

The BBL, drafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, aims to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a new Bangsamoro political entity if enacted and ratified via a plebiscite next year and is now being reviewed by President Benigno Aquino III and his legal advisers.

The BBL is the enabling legislative measure intended to establish the Bangsamoro entity based on the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, signed by  the government and  the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on March 27, 2014.

"The BBL, which will be enacted by Congress, will live up to the people’s expectations as a measure worthy of broad-based support, and one that is faithful to our Constitution,” Deles said during one of the sessions in the June 6-7 peace conference at the Notre Dame University here.

The two-day international dialogue was jointly organized by Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, concurrent bishop of the Cotabato Archdiocese, and supported by the Sant’ Egidio of Italy and the Mohammadiya Indonesia, which are both involved in the on-going peace overture between the government and the MILF.

The activity, which grouped together local and foreign peace activists, and political leaders from across Central Mindanao, a known bastion of the MILF, was also assisted by the Italian government and the European Union.

Deles had told reporters there is no truth to circulating text messages purporting that there are "unseen hands" delaying Malacañang’s submission of the BBL to Congress, for various reasons and vested interests.

“I can assure you there are movements,” Deles told journalists, as she allayed apprehensions of a possible backlash in the peace process if the BBL is not enacted soon enough.

“We cannot simply talk peace forever. We need to build the structures for it, and prepare the communities for the transition from conflict to peace, while bringing down the barriers that have kept it away,” she added.

Deles said all the parties concerned are striving to meet the standards set by President Aquino in pursuing the enactment of a law that would put in place the mechanisms for lasting peace and development in the proposed Bangsamoro core territory.

“We can be bold in taking a few more days, if not weeks, to ensure a more refined and strengthened draft BBL to be stewarded by the leadership of both Houses of Congress through a legislative process, and thereafter, for ratification through plebiscite,” she said. - John Unson