Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez on Sunday cautioned his colleagues against hastily passing an infirmed Bangsamoro Basic Law as Congress listed the pet bill of President Benigno Aquino III as a priority measure.
As Congress resumes its sessions on Tuesday, the House leadership will continue with its plenary debate on BBL, intending to pass it on second reading by December alongside the ratification of the P3.002-trillion national budget for 2016.
“We support peace, but any agreement should be in consonance with the Constitution and existing laws. This will help prevent a half-baked peace measure and not give false hopes,” Romualdez pointed out.
Romualdez said the House should not allow to get pressured by Malacañang to hasten the passage of the BBL this December without making lawmakers review, study and scrutinize the peace measure.
“Our colleagues need more time to study the BBL because we want to guarantee that what we would be passing will be legal and constitutional,” said Romualdez, a lawyer and president of the Philippine Constitution Association, the oldest and respectable association of legal luminaries in the country.
The Romualdez-led Philconsa filed before the Supreme Court a 26-page petition seeking to declare as unconstitutional the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro that the government has entered into with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
House Deputy Majority Leader and Quezon City Rep. Bolet Banal, a stalwart of the ruling Liberal Party, said the House will resume the plenary debates on the peace measure and ratification of next year’s P3.002-trillion General Appropriations Bill upon resumption of sessions.
“We will prioritize the ratification of the national budget next year and to continue the interpellation and debate for the BBL and other important matters,” Banal said.
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., LP chairman, vowed to pass the BBL by the end of December despite the expected pestering problem of a lack of quorum.
Belmonte said the quorum problem is “alarming” considering that the campaign season was about to start.
“I am still confident that the BBL can still be passed by the House. I am appealing to my colleagues to attend the sessions,” said Belmonte, campaign manager of LP’s Coalition of Daang Matuwid, whose standard bearer is Manuel Roxas II.
You Against Corruption and Poverty Rep. Carol Jane Lopez, a stalwart of the House Minority Bloc supporting the presidential bid of Roxas, echoed Romualdez’s position for the House to fully scrutinize the BBL.
“My position stays that this is constitutionally flawed. And so many provisions had either been inserted or left out, without undergoing thorough scrutiny and study. What we don’t want is a measure that will be shot down by the Senate and the Supreme Court. With Congress busy in budget deliberations and also with the campaign season, the chances for a BBL passage looks slim,” Lopez pointed out.
While he supports the peace agreement with the MILF, Romualdez underscored the need for Congress to pass a BBL that is consistent
with the provisions of the Constitution and has no legal infirmities so that Muslims will not be frustrated.
“The Philconsa petition will serve as lifeblood and heart of the peace agreement signed by the government and Moro rebels,” Romualdez
stressed. “The beauty and essence of democracy are to ensure that all laws, rules and regulations, and programs of the government are in
consonance with the Constitution and must also protect the rights of everybody. The petition is very important to make democracy a very
healthy process because it is a very fragile thing if not respected,” Romualdez pointed out.
Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, a lawyer and spokesman of the 40-man Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc., also agreed
with Romualdez’s position, explaining the “SC will interpret a law if it is consistent with our Constitution.”
“Let the Supreme Court decide on the case while we in Congress will do our work and decide whether to pass the BBL or not. That is the beauty of democracy — we have co-equal and independent branches of
government,” Batocabe said.
Meanwhile, other controversial bills facing natural death include the proposed Charter change (Cha-cha) to amend the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution, Anti-Political Dynasty and Freedom of Information (FoI), and the lowering of income tax from 32 percent to 25 percent, which Malacanang has already shot down.
The House and Senate leadership said there was no more time to tackle these bills.