[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’ PEOPLE POWWOW ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Thursday, August 17, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
NOW you see it, now you don’t. It’s the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) that has reappeared in the viewfinder of the Rodrigo Duterte administration, re-introduced by former president and now congresswoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as House Bill 6121.
Arroyo believes that her bill “truly reflects the aspirations of our Muslim brothers and sisters.”
The bill aims to create the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BAR) that would immediately include the present Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Cotabato and Isabela City in Basilan, plus other cities or provinces where there is a local government resolution or petition of at least 10 percent of registered voters asking for their inclusion two months before the plebiscite for the BBL.
We are still unaware of how the Arroyo bill differs from the original form drafted during the Benigno Simeon Aquino presidency that could have empowered the Bangsamoro government to collect taxes within its expandable territory; to establish its own police force; and to try accused Muslims in Islamic Sharia courts.
The BBL was also Aquino’s priority measure aimed at implementing the peace accord signed by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the form of Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro .
Some senators and congressmen openly declared the bill “unconstitutional” because the proposed new region would usurp certain powers of the national government. Moreover, the re-electionists among them felt that by supporting the bill, they would reap the ire of the Christian voters in the 2016 elections.
It is unthinkable why the discarded BBL is being touted anew as the key to peace. It is certainly no way to appease the terroristic Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), believed to be the “sponsor” of the Abu Sayyaf and the Maute Group that are still at war with government troops in Marawi City.
Take note that the Aquino government dangled the original BBL draft as the force that would forge unity between the government and the armed Muslim community.
Ironically, an unexpected twist scuttled the “fun” on Jan. 25, 2015. The infamous date marked the “Mamasapano massacre” that claimed the lives of 44 members of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force (SAF) in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
Following its probe, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed before the Department of Justice a case for direct assault with murder against 26 individuals from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
To this day, the MILF has not surrendered them to the national government.
Netizens naturally question the government’s renewed “peace offering” to the MILF forces, who are also the prime suspects in the “Rizal Day bombing” in Makati on Dec. 30, 2000, which killed 22 and injured 120.
So why reward the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) with a Bangsamoro sub-state? It makes no sense!
Oh we of short memory! Don’t we remember that it was out of his deal with the MNLF that President Fidel Ramos signed the law creating the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 1996? He appointed MNLF chair Nur Missuari first ARMM governor on the pretext of “lasting peace.”
On the contrary, Missuari reinforced his rebellious armed group, culminating in the so-called Zamboanga siege in September 2013 that claimed the lives of 200 – including cops, soldiers, rebels, and civilians.
The same Nur Missuari wants us to forget that. We should not.
Should we not instead rage, rage against the BBL revival? (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
