Next challenge after new Bangsamoro: Good governance

COTABATO CITY - The challenge now confronting stakeholders to the Mindanao peace process is not how to accelerate the creation of the Bangsamoro government but how to govern the outfit efficiently to serve its purpose.

Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on Saturday said there is no doubt Congress will enact the draft Basic Bangsamoro Law (BBL), which aims to replace ARMM with a Bangsamoro outfit based on the peace compact between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

“Everybody in the Bangsamoro territory should focus now on how to help the Bangsamoro succeed through good governance because it will certainly be established next year through the draft BBL,” Hataman said.

Hataman said scheduled visit this week of members of the House of Representatives in Central Mindanao for the public hearings on the draft BBL is proof of the government’s commitment to religiously adhere to its Mar. 27, 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB) with the MILF.

The lawmakers who held consultations in the region were led by Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chairman of the ad-hoc House committee tasked to enact the draft BBL into law.

“We should be more concerned now with how to `capacitate' the local communities on how to fuse ranks as one community and help the Bangsamoro entity run very effectively,” Hataman said.

Rodriguez had told local officials, in a separate dialogue Thursday organized by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG), a foreign-assisted peace advocacy entity, that they are thankful to the stakeholders to the GPH-MILF peace overture for participating extensively in the discussions on the intricacies of the draft BBL.

Rodriguez told participants to the IAG forum, held inside the campus of the Notre Dame University in Cotabato City, that Congress will make use of the inputs from different sectors as reference for their deliberations on the proposed measure meant to replace the ARMM with a Bangsamoro entity.

Hataman said they are ready to turn over to the MILF and the government’s peace panel all fiscal and property assets and personnel of all agencies and support offices under the autonomous region after the enactment and ratification of the draft BBL via a plebiscite.

“By then we must have already fully reformed the ARMM and must have already accomplished more infrastructure projects implemented honestly, according to government accounting procedures,” Hataman said.

Hataman said only through good governance can Mindanao’s Bangsamoro communities achieve lasting peace and development.