Future Bangsamoro can enact laws for protection of Lake Lanao

The future Bangsamoro government has the authority to enact laws for the management and protection of Lake Lanao which is classified as an inland water, Government of the Philippines legal team head Anna Tarhata Basman said during a public consultation of the House of Representatives' Ad Hoc Committee on the Bangsamoro Basic Law in Marawi City.

Basman addressed the issue on Lake Lanao which is among the top concerns of local executives, members of academe, religious sector, federation of sultanates, and youth who generally cited support to the passage of the Bangsamoro bill which is also known as House Bill 4994.

Basman cited a provision in the Bangsamoro bill that pertains to Lake Lanao as inland waters. Article XIII, Section 22 of the bill says: ”The Bangsamoro Government shall have exclusive powers over inland waters, including, but not limited to lakes, marshes, rivers and tributaries. The Bangsamoro Parliament shall enact laws on the regulation, management and protection of these resources. It may create a Bangsamoro office and authorities for specific inland bodies of water that shall exercise management powers over these bodies of water.”

It further says that “the Bangsamoro Government shall ensure that the utilization of these waters shall primarily be for the benefit of the people in the Bangsamoro and shall ensure that communities in the Bangsamoro in whose territory these waters are found are given an equitable share from the revenues generated from such utilization.”

However, Basman clarified the distinction between Lanao Lake as an inland water and as an energy source. She noted that as an energy source, existing hydropower plants in Lake Lanao which are connected to the national grid will remain under the concerned national government agencies.

According to Section 3 of Article V of the bill, “when power generation, transmission, and distribution facilities are connected to the national transmission grid, the Central Government and the Bangsamoro Government shall cooperate and coordinate through the intergovernmental relations mechanism.”

Lake Lanao falls within the provincial boundaries of Lanao del Sur, one of the five provinces in the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and is part of the envisioned core territory of the proposed Bangsamoro political entity.

Genuine autonomy Local executives and sectoral representatives in Marawi expressed support to the passage of the BBL and the establishment of the Bangsamoro as Basman conveyed assurance that it shall “embody real autonomy” to address the Bangsamoro’s right to self-determination. She cited genuine political and fiscal autonomy for the Bangsamoro government as the essence of the proposed BBL.‎

Cagayan de Oro City second district Representative Rufus Rodriguez, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on the BBL, expressed his appreciation of the “overwhelming support in this province to the BBL," as well as to the nineteen lawmakers who attended the public consultation.

Eight members of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, the body who drafted the BBL, were also present as resource persons. Rodriguez emphasized that establishing genuine autonomy for the future Bangsamoro is “not a grant, but an affirmative action to address historical injustices” and end the decades-old conflict in the south. (OPAPP)