Palace exec maintains Aquino gov’t remains focused on BBL despite negative comments

A Malacanang official on Thursday (April 16) said the Aquino administration will not be dissuaded by any talks about the repercussions if the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) will not materialize.

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., in a briefing, said the current administration continues to look at the bigger picture of the peace process despite changes and developments since the previous peace talks.

”We are not worried about those kinds of comments because our focus is on the important element of the peace process,” he stressed.

The Philippine government had initiated talks with several Bangsamoro groups since several years ago and the latest is with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Under the Aquino government, a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed on March 2014 and a draft BBL was submitted to Congress in September of the same year.

The agreement is targeted to provide political stability and economic growth in what is currently called the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) but will be called Autonomous Government of Bangsamoro once the new political entity is in place in 2016.

Under the agreement, the government and the MILF will have to share the revenues from the resource-rich region as well as on governmental power in the area.
The Aquino government maintains that it will continue to push for the materialization of the BBL before the term of President Benigno Aquino III ends in 2016 pointing out that war is too costly for the government.
Questions about the passage of the draft BBL within this administration came out following the death of 44 members of the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) on January 25, 2015 in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, after what the government said was a “misencounter” with MILF members.

The SAF members were on a mission to serve the arrest warrants of two suspected terrorists – Filipino bomb maker Abdulbasit Usman and Malasian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, reportedly a leader of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya (JI).

Marwan was killed during the said operation. (PNA)