THE House of Representatives will adjourn session today, Wednesday, without passing the Palace-backed Bangsamoro Basic Law because it will only be able to end the interpellations on the bill today, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said Tuesday.
“The agenda is, we will finish the interpellation stage by Wednesday. I am hopeful it will be done,” Belmonte told reporters.
But the House is expected to ratify the bicameral conference committee report on the proposed P3.002-trillion national budget for 2016 upon adjournment. The Senate ratified the bicameral conference committee report on the budget bill last Tuesday.
The bicameral conference committee report on the budget bill will be submitted to the Palace for the signature of President Benigno Aquino III.
Congress leaders have said the President is expected to sign the budget bill into law before Christmas.
Belmonte said the House will pass the BBL by next year as it still has to work on the amendments to the measure.
He said the House would have “to plan very carefully the remaining few days in January and February” of 2016 to enable Congress to pass a Constitution-compliant BBL.
The BBL, embodied in substituted House Bill 4994 (An Act Providing Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region), seeks to abolish the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao by creating a new Bangsamoro region that will be given additional autonomy.
The BBL’s passage is provided for in the peace agreement signed by the Aquino administration with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in March last year.
The “opt-in” provision is among the controversial provisions in the proposed BBL that allows neighboring territories to propose their inclusion in the proposed autonomous region through the petition of at least 10 percent of the residents and the approval by a majority of the qualified voters in the city or province in a separate plebiscite.