Moves to shift to a federal form of government should carry the administration’s fiscal commitments to the Moro region under the Bangsamoro Organic Law, United Nations Development Program peace adviser on the Moro political transition Naguib Sinarimbo said.
Sinarimbo, who is also the secretary-general of the United Bangsamoro Justice Party, said the advocacy for a shift to federal form of government should guarantee the constitutional recognition of the peace agreements covering wealth-sharing and block grants provisions as embodied in the BOL.
The Bangsamoro Organic Law seeks to create a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with expanded self-governing powers in the place of the present Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Sinarimbo said a principle in federalism holds that only proceeds from locally-collected taxes or locally -generated revenues could constitute fiscal shares that pertain to the state or region of origin in the allocation of national resources to state or regional governments.
But the BOL provides for a wealth-sharing scheme through a five-percent resource allocation from the net national collection of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and five percent of the net collection of the Bureau of Customs.
Sinarimbo said this and other BOL provisions on wealth-sharing should be carried and sustained under any new Charter.
He said having gone through a long history of conflict and underdevelopment, it is important to the Bangsamoro people to secure assurance from the national government through a “special fiscal arrangement” that all the wealth-sharing and block grant provisions of the BOL shall be upheld.
Sinarimbo said the national government should sustain its BOL commitments in all level of efforts to rewrite the Constitution to make the Bangsamoro region at par with other regions of the country in terms of development. “‹