BBL set for enactment as Congress resolves deadlock on plebiscite, territory provisions

President Rodrigo Duterte will sign the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) before his third State of the Nation Address after Congress resolved the impasse over plebiscite and territory issues, Malacañang said Wednesday.

Duterte’s spokesperson, Harry Roque, said the President convinced the Senate and House of Representatives during a meeting in the presidential palace to adopt the House version.

Roque said the House version provides that the six municipalities of Lanao del Norte and the 39 barangays of North Cotabato could vote to join the BBL territory in a referendum to be conducted on the mother territory of the areas involved.

Duterte also cited the Supreme Court decision in April 2014 that said registered voters of Nueva Ecija and not just those from Cabanatuan City should participate in a plebiscite converting the city into a highly urbanized city.

“With the President’s intervention citing constitutional provisions and the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Umali, the passage of the BBL has been assured. President Duterte will sign the BBL law before the SONA,” the Palace spokesman said.

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri confirmed Roque’s pronouncements.

“The legal luminaries in the meeting together with the Executive Secretary (Salvador Medialdea) and Justice Secretary (Menardo Guevarra) were present [and] all agreed that not involving the mother provinces and municipalities during the plebiscite for the towns of Lanao Norte and barangays of North Cotabato would be considered unconstitutional,” Zubiri said in a message to reporters.

“And so as not to be struck down by the Supreme Court on that provision, the consensus was to adopt the House version on territory. As a good soldier, as that was the direction given then I submit,” he added.

The House version states that it has to be a majority vote of the province, while the in the Senate version, it will just be the majority vote of the municipalities which is similar to the proposal of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.

Zubiri said they have not spoken to the BTC yet.

“We will have to manage their expectations and try to temper emotions as we are guided by the constitution in all the work we do as legislators,” he said.

The harmonized version of the bill is slated for ratification by the Senate and the House  at the opening of the third regular session of the 17th Congress on July 23.

The final version of the measure will then be submitted to the President for signing later that day, in time for his third SONA to be delivered before a joint session of Congress at the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City.

Duterte has been pushing for the enactment of the BBL, which aims to end decades of conflict in Mindanao by creating a political entity that would enjoy greater autonomy than the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. — RSJ, GMA News