THE proposed Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region is practically dead but there’s a slim chance it could be saved, Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Friday.
He told a radio interview that they could run out of time to pass the proposed BLBAR because it was still in the period of interpellation and there were only a few days left to act on it.
Marcos made his statement even as the Ad Hoc Committee on the Bangsamoro Basic Law and Cagayan De Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said the creation of an autonomous Bangsamoro region and providing it with meaningful and genuine autonomy was a duty that Congress had to fulfill as mandated by the Constitution.
“The substance of the BLBAR is the powers of government and fiscal autonomy,” Rodriguez said. “The BLBAR provides more political autonomy and financial autonomy to the people of Bangsamoro.”
Marcos is the chairman of the Senate committee on local government that is conducting hearings on the Malacañang-proposed BBL. But he said he had not given up trying to save the measure.
“In our version, if we finish the period of interpellation, I think we can find a compromise so we no longer have to debate on the proposed amendments in the plenary,” Marcos said.
He said the suggestion was for the senators to send him all their proposed amendments, agree on what they could, and let the committee propose the amendments to speed up the process.
“But I don’t know how things will go in the House of Representatives. The House terminated the debates on their own version of the bill before adjourning for the Christmas break,” Marcos said.
He said it might be difficult for the House to muster a quorum when they resume sessions in January because most of the congressmen would already be busy on their own campaigns.
In the Senate, he said, there was no time limit for senators to ask their questions on a proposed measure.
And the Senate had yet to rule whether or not the BLBAR was a bill of local application and thus would need to await the House version before it could be voted on.
“Even if the Senate and the House manage to pass the measure, a big hurdle remains as it may prove difficult for the Bicameral Conference Committee to reconcile the differing provisions given the limited time,” Marcos said.
“In the Senate we are discussing the substitute bill I filed, but in the House they are essentially deliberating on the so-called Palace version. A possible solution may be for the House to adopt the Senate version or the Senate to adopt the House version to speed up the process.”