MILF: We won’t renegotiate BBL

By Funny Pearl A. Gajunera
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Central Committee Vice Chair Ghazali Jaafar said the group does not intend to renegotiate with the government regarding the provisions of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
This after Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said the House of Representative will delete at least eight provisions of the BBL which Congress saw as unconstitutional.
In a press conference, Sunday afternoon at Waterfront Insular Hotel, Jaafar said the negotiations of the MILF and the Government of the Philippines had already been made through the Comprehensive Agreement of the Bangsamoro.
He also said Malacañang has also approved the agreement.
“We have already signed an agreement, and the negotiation is already finished. We do not intend to renegotiate what we have negotiated for many many years,” Jaafar said.
Rodriguez, who chairs the 75-member ad hoc committee scrutinizing the draft BBL, said in a television interview last Saturday that eight provisions in the BBL are “unconstitutional.”
“Eight of these provisions are against the Constitution, while the ninth is not acceptable to most members from Mindanao,” Rodriguez said.
He said among the provisions that Congress finds unconstitutional is the creation of a separate Commission on Audit (COA), Commission on Elections (Comelec), Civil Service Commission, Commission on Human Rights, and Office of the Ombudsman for the Bangsamoro.
Rodriguez said that the provisions are unconstitutional because Congress cannot pass a law that will interfere with the functions and operations of independent constitutional commissions like the COA, Comelec, and the Ombudsman.
Jaafar, however, said the function of the House of Representative is to pass laws and not to identify whether a law is unconstitutional or not.
He said Congress should let the Supreme Court decide whether the BBL is constitutional or not.
He said the MILF’s opinion is that Congress should legislate or enact the BBL into law “and let the Supreme Court decide whether there is unconstitutionality there.”
Jaafar also said if the nation’s leaders do not want the BBL to pass, they should find an alternative solution to stop the war in Mindanao.
“Logically speaking, if the war in Mindanao would not be given solution, the war would not stop,” he said.