Instead of March 31, the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law will be submitted to President Benigno Aquino III by April or May, MILF vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar told GMA News on Monday.
“Yung ibinigay na deadline, hindi kaya. Pero palagay ko kaya nila next month April, within April at palagay ko by May andyan na yan sa Palasyo, kay Pangulong Aquino,” Jaafar said.
He said it will depend on Aquino when he will forward the draft law to Congress for approval. The President, who witnessed the historic signing of the peace deal Thursday last week, is expected to certify the measure as urgent.
Once enacted, the Basic Law will be subjected to a plebiscite in the proposed Bangsamoro territory. Once it is ratified, an enhanced Bangsamoro autonomous region will be established, replacing the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Jaafar said the Bangsamoro Transition Commission is working hard to finish the draft. The commission has 15 members, eight from MILF and seven from the government.
“Tuloy tuloy, continuous. As a matter of fact, nago-overtime sila,” he said.
Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief peace negotiator and head of the Transition Commission, said they are in the process of polishing the first draft that still “needs to undergo several processes especially in relation to hard issues.”
“The Transition Commission is made up of 15 members and with different orientation. It’s very clear to everyone that the higher agenda is for the Bangsamoro people. The hard issue is about the internal process, some member of the commission are very legalistic, some are very rigid and some are viewing the process as a political document, there lies the difficulty,” he said.
He added that almost all of the members of the commission, except one who is a former lawmaker, are not experienced to drafting a proposed law.
“It requires a lot of processes. The important thing is we agreed among ourselves that much of the processes are informal in character otherwise if we go formal every time, the rigidity is there,” Iqbal said.
Iqbal earlier said that the commission is racing against time to have the Basic Law enacted this year or in the early part of 2015 to avoid possible delays caused by the “election fever.” — KBK, GMA News
