Palace to submit draft Bangsamoro Basic Law to Congress this week

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is set to transmit to Congress the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), a month after the Bangsamoro Transition Commission submitted the measure to President Duterte. 

“The Presidential Legislative Liaison Office will officially transmit the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law to Congress this week,” presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a press briefing yesterday. 

The BBL, which will implement the 2014 peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), aims to create a new Bangsamoro political entity with enhanced autonomy. 

The measure was bypassed by the previous Congress following concerns that some of its provisions were unconstitutional.

The passage of BBL was also hampered by the outcry over the Mamasapano encounter in Maguindanao that left 44 police commandos dead in 2015.

Former president and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has filed her own version of the BBL even before Malacañang submits its draft to the legislature. 

“We leave it to Congress to act on the matter we dispatched, including consolidating the Palace version with House Bill 6121 filed by Rep. Gloria Arroyo,” Abella said. 

Duterte has expressed willingness to certify the BBL as urgent and is hopeful that the measure will be passed within the year. 

“May I say to you, my brother Moros, that I commit to support – in front of everybody – my covenant with you that I will support and husband this instrument as it goes in the legislative for its consideration,” Duterte said during the formal turnover of the BBL to the Office of the President last July 17.

“And there will be no objections of the provisions of all that is consistent with the Constitution and the aspiration of the Moro people,” he added.