There is no further reason to believe that the Bangsamoro Basic Law in its current form will be passed under the Aquino administration. This is according to Lanao del Sur Rep. Pangalian Balindong.
“Today, with a heavy heart and disturbing sense of foreboding, I close the book of hope for the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law. 51 public hearings, 200 hours of committee level debates and 8 months of consultations are all put to waste —thrown into the abyss of uncertainty and darkness. This is the lowest and saddest day of my legislative work,” he said Wednesday.
From the International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu, Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Cardinal Quevedo said politics was responsible for the demise of the law, even as he still hopes President Aquino can muster support from lawmakers in this last few weeks of the administration.
We agree with the cardinal that politics is the culprit. Unlike him, however, we believe that politics damaged not the BBL per se but the pursuit of peace in general.
At the outset, President Aquino had wanted the BBL to be his legacy. He wanted it passed, at all costs, under his administration. He wanted to be able to say that he was the leader who was able to bring peace to a land that had been strife-torn for decades.
We would have wanted that, too—if it did not come at the cost of sacrificing the concerns of the other stakeholders in the peace process.
We recognize that a lot of work was rendered by the peace workers who had the same goals as the rest of the nation: to end the conflict in Mindanao and set it up for inclusive growth and development so it could reach its potential and its people could live the life they deserve, free from fear and poverty and ignorance.
Alas, in its haste to claim credit for passing the law that would bring peace to Mindanao, this administration flatly rejected the valid issues raised by critical but well-meaning quarters, dismissing them as enemies of peace.
And when 44 young police commandos were stuck in enemy territory—how else could we interpret the terrorists living right inside MILF-controlled areas—their plea for help was supposedly ignored just because it might endanger the talks.
But the BBL is not peace, and peace is not automatically assured by its passage. There are many roads to peace but a common characteristic is the inclusion of as many stakeholders as possible in the discussions, even as the challenge might seem immense in the beginning.
We must begin again, it seems. In doing so, we must accept that we failed, identify why we did, and take great pains to ensure that we don’t commit the same blunder.
