SC: No TRO vs Bangsamoro pact

The Supreme Court on Tuesday did not issue a temporary restraining order against the Bagnsamoro Framework Agreement.

 

In a media briefing, Supreme Court spokesperson Ma. Victoria Gleoresty Guerra said the high court instead ordered the Office of the Solicitor General, which acts as the government's lawyer, to comment on the petition filed by lawyer Elly Velez Pamatong last December.

 

In his petition, Pamatong asked the high court to invalidate and declare as unconstitutional the agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front because the peace talks between the two were facilitated in Malaysia and with the help of Malaysians, who the petitioner claimed stands to benefit the most from the deal.

 

Under the preliminary framework signed in October, a 15-member transition commission would be formed to draft the laws that would govern the Bangsamoro, to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.  

 

President Benigno Aquino III has described the ARMM as a "failed experiment" because corruption and poverty remained unmitigated in the region.

 

Pamatong questioned the role the Malaysians played in the peace talks, stressing that Malaysia is competing with the Philippines in claiming Sabah island. He said the agreement could well be considered a "deed of sale over Mindanao in favor of Malaysia. It is a treaty of surrender to the... Malaysian invasion of the Philippines."

 

Sabah is located in the northernmost part of the island of Borneo, south of the Philippines. Sabah is internationally recognized as a state of Malaysia but the Philippines lays claim to its eastern portion, saying it was part of the Sultanate of Sulu that was merely leased to the British North Borneo Company. RH Law

 

Meanwhile, during the same en banc meeting on Tuesday, the high court deferred tackling a petition against Republic Act 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, according to Guerra. Guerra said the petition would instead be tackled "in a future en banc session."

 

The petition against the RH Law was filed last week by James Imbong, son of Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) legal counsel Jo Aurea Imbong. Mr. Imbong's co-petitioner in the case is his wife, Lovely-Ann. The petition was raffled off to Associate Justice Jose Catral Mendoza, according to court sources.

 

In their petition for certiorari and prohibition with a prayer for a writ of injunction, the Imbong couple said the government should cease from implementing the law for being "unconstitutional." They filed the petition "on behalf of our minor children."

 

The RH law seeks to provide improved public access to natural and artificial family planning options, better maternal care, and youth education. But the Imbongs said the law "mocks the nation's Filipino culture — noble and lofty in its values and holdings on life, motherhood and family life — now the fragile lifeblood of a treasures culture that today stands solitary but proud in contrast to other nations." — RSJ, GMA News