39 party-list solons call for suspension of BBL deliberations

Party-list lawmakers allied with the majority on  Tuesday called for the suspension of the deliberations on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in the House of Representatives following the deadly January 25 Mamasapano clash.

In a press conference, Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, spokesperson for the Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc. (PCF), said their 39-member bloc has agreed to call for the suspension of the House Ad Hoc Committee’s hearings on the BBL until such time that the investigation of the Philippine National Police's Board of Inquiry (BOI) on the incident has been concluded.

“The January 25, 2015 Mamasapano Incident, forced us members of the Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc. led by our President, AGAP Party-list Representative Nicanor 'Nikki' Briones to call for the suspension of the talks and negotiations for the BBL now being tackled in the House of Representatives ad hoc committee until such time we are able to determine the culpability of the responsible groups involved,” Batocabe said in a press briefing, reading from copy of their official statement.

The PCF is composed of 39 party-list groups, belonging to the majority bloc. Excluded from the group are the Makabayan bloc and independent party-list groups Buhay and ABAKADA.

The House Ad Hoc Committee on the BBL, headed by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, has been deliberating on the controversial measure since September last year.  

“We urged the committee to stop first the deliberations until such time na matapos na po ng Board of Inquiry ang kanilang investigation at mapanagot ang mga may kasalan. We cannot talk about peace if there is no justice, there must be justice first,” Batocabe said.

On January 25, policemen belonging to the PNP’s elite unit, Special Action Force (SAF), had a day-long firefight against members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and its breakaway group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao. The incident led to the deaths of 44 SAF members, with 12 injured. The MILF said 17 of its fighters were killed in the clash.

The government had earlier called the incident a “misencounter” as the MILF and the BIFF were not the intended targets of the police operation but Jemaah Islamiyah leader Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan and foreign-trained Filipino bombmaker Abdul Basit Usman, believed to be a high-ranking leader of the Abu Sayyaf group.

Rodriguez had earlier warned the PNP, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the local government of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that the committee would suspend the deliberations on the BBL if these government agencies failed to submit their comprehensive incident reports on the Mamasapano clash until Monday next week, February 9.

The committee has been holding executive sessions since last week to deliberate on the sticky provisions of the BBL as contained in House Bill 4994.

The BBL will serve as the legal basis for the creation of the Bangsamoro government which is set to replace the ARMM. The creation of the Bangsamoro government aims to end the decades-long arm struggle in the region. —KBK, GMA News