GENERAL SANTOS CITY, August 18, 2015 – Without leadership in action, the Bangsamoro Basic Law bill –even with its substitute name “Bangsamoro Autonomous Region Basic Law” – will not be passed by the present Congress until sine die in June 2016. That is how it looks now; unless the Congress leaders can mount a surprise, a sort of a miracle, with their last-minute decisive action that is what it will be
The President has long been saying he is resolute in having the BBL (not BARBL) passed in time for the establishment of the Bangsamoro before he steps down on June 30, 2016. Why did he not stop the Congress from substituting BBL with BARBL, the BM with BAR? Without leadership in action, he will have no BM nor BAR to inaugurate by June 30, 2016.
The Senate President, the House Speaker and the Chair of the House Ad Hoc Committee on BBL were elated by the President’s mention in his last July 27 State of the Nation Address of the BBL as among the “most important” of the legislations he wanted to be passed. By that endorsement, a sort of urgent certification they had long awaited, they foresaw the easy and speedy sailing of the BBL through the Congress – at the latest, by mid-September.
AHCBBL Chair Rufus Rodriguez airily told media, “We will hit the ground running” – meaning, once the House resumed the plenary debates on HB 5811. If ever they had hit the ground, they were not even crawling. Without quorums on August 4 and the five other session days after that, there were no interpellations. In the latest media reports, Rodriguez was pleading — House Speaker was hoping – for a quorum today, August 17, and in all session days until the Congress on recess on October 10 until November 2.
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. could only express his frustrations. He said he would appeal to the leaders of the different blocs in the House. Such is the leadership in the House – the Speaker cannot have a quorum. Such are the House representatives – they are not interested in plenary sessions. The Liberal Party led House coalition has the number to pass the BBL. Yet, there has been no quorum! What leadership crisis from the President down to the House leaders!
The same leadership crisis is plaguing the Senate. All words, no action! That’s what Senate President Franklin Drilon’s leadership is. The fate of SB 2498, the Senate version of Draft BBL, is entirely in the hands of Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., chair of the Senate Committee on Local Governments. There is no time set to finish the debates and the amendments. Marcos said the bill may be passed by the 17th Congress under the administration of the next President.
Time that had hounded the peace process under President Aquino III since a year after he resumed the negotiation is now threatening to scuttle the BBL. To use a metaphor, the BBL will be stillborn; or, if born live, it will be deformed, most probably be unwanted. The latest reports are disheartening.
MindaNews’ Editor-in-Chief Carolyn O. Arguillas reported, August 16, 2015: Only 18 session days left for BBL before Congress starts plenary debates on budget:
Item: The Congress begins plenary debates on the 2016 budget on September 28. That leaves the Congress, holding only three session days per week, only 18 session days from August 17 to September 23 to make ready the BBL for the President to sign. Within that period, the interpellations, the amendments and the voting on HB 5811 and SB 2894 must be finished including the consolidation of bills at the bicameral conference and the separate approval by the House and the Senate of the consolidated Act.
Rodriguez’s last straw: “The real deadline is on or before September 28.” Does his last straw bind Marcos and the Senate?
Item: October 12 to 16 is the filing of certificates of candidacy by those who are running for elective posts in the synchronized elections of May 9, 2016. If no BBL is passed before Congress goes on recess on October 10, elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will proceed as scheduled in 2016.
If a BBL Act is signed by October 10, what will happen? The Act cannot be submitted to a plebiscite before 90 days after the signing. Will there be a plebiscite within the national election period?[]
Can the plebiscite be synchronized with the May election months after the 120-day constitutional limit from the signing? There is no assurance of ratification. But what if it is ratified? What a quandary!
Item: At the Senate, the period of interpellation on SB 2894 is scheduled to begin on August 17. “In a measure as contentious as this one, you can expect many of the other senators to propose amendments that we can introduce to further refine the provisions of the bill,” Marcos said in a press release posted on the Senate website. Seventeen senators signed his committee report, but many expressed their intention to interpellate him and introduce their own amendments to SB 2894.
Marcos expects the debates to take about six weeks – to the end of September — unless Drilon can speed up the proceedings considering other priority measures up for deliberation, including the proposed 2016 budget. Obviously, Marcos foresees difficulty in reconciling SB 2498 and HB 5811 at the bicameral conference that he is not sure if it can be enacted before the term of the current administration ends.
Philippine Daily Inquirer’s DJ Yap reported, August 17, 2015: Quorum lack on BBL bill bothers Belmonte:
Item: Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Sunday admitted his concern for low attendance at the plenary sessions that has been hampering the passage of HB 5811. Yet, he is optimistic the House will be able to pass the draft BBL before the end of September after which Congress leaders will give priority the 2016 national budget.
Item: Last Saturday, Rodriguez acknowledged their difficulty in both the House and the Senate. “There are a lot of balancing acts to be done to ensure that the [proposed BBL] remains true both to the genuine aspirations of the Bangsamoro for self-determination and the 1987 Philippine Constitution.”
He noted the significant differences of t“The HB 5811 and SB 2894. The Senate’s removed the preamble from its versions and deleted the P17-billion Special Development Fund for speeding up infrastructure development in the Bangsamoro during its first five years.
He also cited “early reviews of the Senate version” showing SB 2498 seemed to have a “weakened Bangsamoro parliamentary system of government.” However, he is sure this and other differences could be ironed out on the conference committee.
Marcos alluded to these in the MindaNews report above.
The Philippine Star’s Paolo Romero with Cristina Mendez reported, August 17, 2015: House won’t restore BBL:
Item: AHCBBL Chair Rodriguez and other leaders of the House, together with the vice chairmen of the ad hoc committee and Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, met last week with BTC Chair and Chief MILF Negotiator Mohagher Iqbal. They rejected the request of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) to restore in HB 5811 at least 28 provisions that have been deleted from HB 4994, the original Draft BBL.[]