By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Feb. 11 (PNA) — The Palace is expectant that the House of Representatives and the Senate hearings on the Mamasapano incident will shed light on the issue and help lawmakers on their thoughts about the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
This, after Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez, chair of the ad hoc committee on the draft BBL, indefinitely suspended the BBL hearing last Monday to learn more about the participation of some Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members in the Mamasapano incident and for these, along with members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), to be surrendered to the government.
In a briefing Wednesday, Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said they are optimistic that the hearing will help the lawmakers know what really happened in Maguindanao on January 25, 2015.
”And hopefully as difficult as it may be, the BBL, as they deliberate on it given the current situation, given what they have learned from this situation, (they) may deliberate and in their minds and in their wisdom, if they think they need to improve the BBL, then let it be deliberated on,” he said.
The Aquino administration is hopeful that the BBL will be passed within the term of President Benigno Aquino III.
It has made progress in putting necessary programs that promote peace and economic growth in the country’s second largest island group.
This after representatives of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed in March 2014 the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) and submitted a draft BBL to Congress last September.
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.
However, several lawmakers have cast doubts on the passage of the proposed measure and the sincerity of the MILF to attain long-term peace in Mindanao after some MILF members were reportedly those among who exchanged bullets with Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force (SAF) last Jan. 25.
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).
The government said Marwan, who has a USD 5 million bounty, was killed during the police’s elite group’s operations in Mamasapano on Jan. 25, 2015.‘
However, 44 SAF members also died during the said operations after what the government said was a “misencounter” with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). (PNA)