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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Poll: Voters will junk BBL backers

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MOST Filipino voters said they will not choose candidates who support the government’s proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, results of the second The Standard Poll showed.

The survey, conducted by resident pollster Junie Laylo from Sept. 21 to Oct. 1, had 1,500 respondents, all of whom are registered voters with biometrics from 76 provinces across the country and the 17 cities in the National Capital Region.

At least 64 percent of the respondents said they will “choose a candidate who does not support the BBL” while only 35 percent said they will “choose a candidate who supports the BBL.”

Voters from the Visayas posted the highest percentage of opposition to candidates who will back the measure, with 78 percent saying they will choose politicians who will not support the BBL.

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It was only in Mindanao that 54 percent of the respondents said they will choose candidates who will support the BBL.

The survey also showed that 51 percent of Filipino voters want the BBL scrapped while only 16 percent said the measure should be passed without changing any of its provisions. At least 33 percent of the respondents said some provisions of the proposed BBL should be changed.

The original version of the BBL seeks to create a new juridical entity to be called Bangsamoro which will replace thea Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has submitted a substitute version of the BBL which amended 80 percent of its provisions, including the expansion of the composition of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority to include the Moro National Liberation Front.

The BTA will serve as the interim government once the BBL is ratified in Congress and through a plebiscite. In the Palace version of the BBL, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front will lead the transition body, with no specific mention of the MNLF.

At the House of Representatives, the ad hoc committee working on the original version of the BBL struck down 28 items, including provisions on natural resources as well as those in the preamble, prompting MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal to warn that the move will dilute the BBL and defeat the efforts of the government and the MILF at concluding a peace agreement.

The survey also showed an increase in the demand for the BBL plebiscite to be conducted nationwide at 61 percent, instead of only in the areas covered by the proposed Bangsamoro territory.

In the first The Standard Poll, Filipino voters were still split on the plebiscite issue.

The Standard Poll has error margins of +/- 2.6 percent for the national results and +/- 6 percent for the regional results. All regions were represented in the survey.

Laylo, The Standard’s in-house pollster, has 25 years of experience in political polling and strategic research.

Despite the delay in the passage of the BBL, the Palace said it will be premature to certify the measure as urgent because it is still undergoing interpellation in Congress.

Discussions on the Malacañang-drafted BBL suffered delays after the Jan. 25 Mamasapano tragedy, which resulted in the deaths of 44 police commandos at the hands of MILF members and other private armed groups protecting Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan who was also killed during the operation.

President Benigno Aquino III earlier warned that the decades-old conflict in Mindanao will continue if the BBL is not passed.

“If the BBL is not passed, the cycle of conflict will continue, and our sisters and brothers in Mindanao will continue to sink in the quagmire of poverty,” Aquino said.

The MNLF on Wednesday denied that it has formed an alliance with the MILF to improve the chances of the BBL being passed, saying such reports were just “mere propaganda.”

MNLF spokesman Absalom Cerveza said the MNLF never establish an alliance with the MILF purposely to rally behind the passage of the BBL among the Muslim community in Mindanao.

Earlier, MILF chairman Murad Ibrahim and former Cotabato City Mayor Muslimen Sema, head of the Council of 15, a breakaway faction of the MNLF, said the two groups were united to rally behind the BBL.

“We vehemently deny that the MNLF joined with the MILF. The one who joined was the group of Muslimen Sema or the council of 15. They are no longer MNLF. They have been taken out of the roster,” Cerveza said.

He said the group of Sema has created their own organization after they broke from the MNLF. 

The MNLF on Tuesday called on its allies and supporters to boycott the May 2016 elections, saying that the Bangsamoro was being used as a prop for political propaganda. With Francisco Tuyay and Lance Baconguis    

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