Davide, Garcia argue for and against Bangsamoro autonomy law
ABOUT 300 people from various sectors attended yesterday’s forum on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) hosted by the Cebu Archdiocese.
The forum held at the SPFY Covered Court inside the Archbishop’s Residence compound along D. Jakosalem Street in Cebu City drew participants from the church, academe, religious and private sectors.
An exit poll conducted after the forum showed that 242 voted against the passage of the BBL with 35 supporting its approval.
Msgr. Rommel Kintanar of the Cebu Archdiocesan Discernment Group, who served as forum supervisor, reiterated the stand of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that the proposed law should not be rushed.
He said many circles and communities of discernment should be formed first.
Cornerstone
“In discernment, we remain strong as a Filipino people and as a republic,” Kintanar said.
At the start of the forum former chief justice Hilario Davide Jr. said the BBL is a cornerstone for justice, peace and development in Mindanao.
“The BBL will not only grant autonomy, it will also serve as an instrument of peace and justice for our Muslim brothers,” said Davide, one of the convenors of the government-created peace panel tasked to review the BBL.
Davide said the BBL which will create the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BAR) is constitutional.
“The Constitution must guide the interpretation of the BBL, not the other way around,” he said.
Davide said the BBL is “extraordinarily special” because it is the embodiment of a peace agreement whose negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) spanned 17 years. (See related story on Islands page 10.)
Davide asked participants to help make the BBL the “proverbial mustard seed” that will grow and build justice, peace and development in Mindanao.
Former Deputy House speaker Pablo Garcia took the opposite view, saying the BBL was an “exercise in futility.”
“Congress cannot enact BBL because they are prohibited by the Constitution to create autonomous regions,” he said.
He cited Section 1, Article 10 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution which states that there is only one government and all other “governments” are merely territorial and political subdivisions.
Constitutional amendment
The provision states that only the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in the north and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in the south are allowed under the Constitution.
“Any other area which wishes to become an autonomous region should seek a constitutional amendment,” he told the audience.
Garcia described the passage of the BBL as a “Pandora’s Box” that will “bring serious and dangerous problems to the country.”
The reactors included Najeeb Mufti Razul and Manny Lopez. Panelists were retired Judge Meinrado Paredes, Kaabag and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu chapter.
Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma gave the closing remarks in a pre-recorded video message taken while he was en route to the airport for a trip to Rome last weekend.